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Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

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Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#71

Post by V__ »

airstrike wrote: post #48

I'm not really into LaTeX but I am really into the specific problem of authoring documents with a certain (user-defined) look-and-feel by leveraging some (very user-friendly) DSL that is close to markdown but with more features Does Typst support themes so that I can achieve that? Are there other tools I should be aware of? Are there tools that do all of the above and have themes defined as CSS? I'm aware of RMarkdow…

If you don't have high typesetting needs, maybe WeasyPrint fits your use case.

[1] https://weasyprint.org/

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#72

Post by alephaleph »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #52

Latex is "typesetting-complete". This language is not, so it's not a replacement. For instance * The syntax does not use escape sequences for functions/symbols, i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. This is not okay. * There is reasonable sy…

The first bullet point is incorrect. In normal text, you use # for functions and symbols, i.e. #sym.phi or #emph. In math blocks, you don't use # for stuff like phi or floor but that's because it interprets everything as a function or symbol, with an exception for single letters. If you want any plain text in a math block, whether it's a function name or not, you just put quotes around it. If you want implicit multiplication, you need spaces between each letter.

I also don't know what you mean by the second bullet point. If you want repeatable single word or sentence formatting, you can define a function for it, which there is easy syntax for.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#74

Post by lapinot »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #52

Latex is "typesetting-complete". This language is not, so it's not a replacement. For instance * The syntax does not use escape sequences for functions/symbols, i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. This is not okay. * There is reasonable sy…

I'd encourage you reading through the thesis explaining the decisions and the thing in details. Just did skimmed through myself and all your concerns are easily answered (https://www.user.tu-berlin.de/laurmaedje/programmable-markup...).

Your first concern is just wrong, afaik content and code live in different syntactic worlds. Code in content has a "#" sigil (and ends at some point) and content in code is delimited with square brackets. Your second concern is weird. For one off things you definitely just wrap it in a function call `#myweirdthing[blabla]`.

Last remark: you're bikeshedding. Seeing your previous remarks i'm not sure you should. Makes complete sense to have a simple powerful syntax and a handful of shortcuts for markdown-level common typography.

I'm absolutely not affiliated btw, just thought about very similar stuff for some time and been waiting for the release. I would've done a couple things sightly differently but the big decisions look very sensible and i'm sure they thought about it for a long time. Good work releasing this and thanks for the free software work!

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#75

Post by mrazomor »

LaTeX is simple if you:

- have a good template (most of the conferences & some other parts of academia provide this),

- use a decent IDE (many LaTeX editors I tried in the past were great, now I'm fine with just vim),

- stick with the basics (text, tables, formulas, images; it's easy to Google it).

The last point is what matters the most. As soon as you want to change the margins, stylize the table in a different way, tune the text so it looks exactly as you imagine, is when things get complicated. People expect M$ Word and get frustrated with LaTeX. From what I see, Typst solves this in a different way -- it doesn't provide the ability to do that (yet, when it provides it, it will become as complicated as LaTeX).

Why even learn LaTeX or TeX? The Internet is full of recepies. That all you need. Why learning new syntax for formulas when you have a mountain of resources about LaTeX formulas to typeset anything you need.

There are a few "solved problems" in computer science, and typesetting documents is one of them. The progress is made by building TeXmaker, TeXstudio, TeX Live, MiKTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. Not segmenting the space.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#76

Post by tonnydourado »

BrandonS113 wrote: post #58
mananaysiempre wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People familliar with LaTeX will use it in places where it is definitely not required and sometimes even where it’s arguably not a very good fit, such as for presentation slides, illustrated posters laid out in complicated ways, or in one notable case a diagramming package with automatic graph layout, plotting, symbols for circuits, and a boatloat of other things (TikZ). It might be difficult to believe given the unf…

I have to disagree to "arguably not a very good fit, such as for presentation slides." I have to make regular work presentations with a lot of math. There are two choices: Powerpoint and Latex/beamer. While the latter is far from painless, powerpoint takes much more time and is much worse to revise.

Etching slides into clay tablets with your hands tied behind your back is less painful than PowerPoint. Beating that isn't much of a flex.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#77

Post by justeleblanc »

SCLeo wrote: post #46

So far, my favorite thing about it is matching parentheses scale automatically. No more \left(\right) nonsenses.

Except that \left\right is almost always the wrong solution. It's one of my pet peeves when collaborating on papers. Your parentheses shouldn't scale all the way up and down your equation, unless you want them to be disgustingly tall (just try \left( \int_0^1 \frac{dx}{x} \right) to see what I mean). You should choose \big[lr], \bigg[lr], \Big[lr] or \Bigg[lr] based on what looks good, and the computer is not good at guessing which one will be visually pleasant.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#78

Post by bombcar »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #50
jkepler wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. However, it can be tough finding documentation how to use plain TeX. I find that increasingly I'm using OpTeX, which is a much smaller set of macros than LaTeX, simpler this use, understand, and reason about. https://petr.olsak.net/optex/

> However, it can be tough finding documentation how to use plain TeX. I hate to be that guy, but... the TeXbook works and recently (finally!) had an official ebook release, illustrations and all. It’s a peculiar value of “works”—personally, I had to be stuck home sick for a couple of weeks with no reading material to get through it from beginning to end, it doesn’t really start to get rewarding unless you get throug…

The TeXbook works well - but many people don't really know what they really want to make it look like, and want guidance - which is what LaTeX provides.

TeX itself is quite powerful, but you end up finding you're reinventing a macro package.

But you can use it basically as markdown and it formats things quite well.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#80

Post by m4lvin »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #52

Latex is "typesetting-complete". This language is not, so it's not a replacement. For instance * The syntax does not use escape sequences for functions/symbols, i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. This is not okay. * There is reasonable sy…

> i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language.

I thought exactly the same: What if I want to write the product of f,l,o,o,r? Well, the "ugly hack" is explained in the readme: You just write "floor" with quotes instead of floor. Seems alright to me ;-)

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