Typst is a new markup-based typesetting system that is designed to be as powerful as LaTeX while being much easier to learn and use. [1.1]
References
- Type: Webpage. Title: “typst/typst”. Publisher: “GitHub”. Published (Modified): 2026-03-16T09:39:55.000Z. Accessed: 2025-03-18T08:55Z. URI: https://github.com/typst/typst.
- Type: File. Title: “README.md”.
- Type: Text. Location: ¶1.
- Type: File. Title: “README.md”.
Maths feels like a first class citizen in latex. The syntax is ugly, but there is some logic through the legacy jank.
Typst makes fundamental design decisions that render it unsuitable beyond extremely simply equations. In LaTeX, curly braces are nearly always reserved for enclosing arguments, to avoid confusion with actual brackets.
Typst uses normal brackets for both its scripting and actual maths.
For example,
\frac{n(n+1)}{2}in latex turns into(n(n + 1)) / 2in typst. The typst code is incredibly unclear - the first set of brackets with the slash together actually form the fraction operator, so neither end up visible.You can see how this would start to struggle even with high school level maths, with bracketed terms and possibly fractional terms in exponents, integrals, etc.
For example, it is very difficult for me to work out the difference between the following three in typst. That is specifically not what you want from a typesetting language.
1/2(x + y) 1/x(x + y) 1/2^x(x + y)LaTeX ignores whitespace, so you can just use a formatter to space out your code and ensure the curly braces. This is not even an option in typst, which uses the space as an escape character.
Update (2026-03-20T00:37Z): @Meron35@lemmy.world, it has since been found that Typst is aware of this inconsistency [7].
I think these are valid complaints. For clarity, this is the output that I found for each:
I was surprised by the second; I expected it to produce
[6]. I didn’t know what to expect for the third.
I tried searching through the documentation [4], but I was unable to find any information that exactly defined expressions [5], and how they are grouped within the fraction when juxtaposed like in your examples.
References
echo "#set page(width: auto, height: auto, margin: 0pt); $ 1/2(x + y) $" | typst compile - o.pngecho "#set page(width: auto, height: auto, margin: 0pt); $ 1/x(x + y) $" | typst compile - o.pngecho "#set page(width: auto, height: auto, margin: 0pt); $ 1/2^x(x + y) $" | typst compile - o.pngecho "#set page(width: auto, height: auto, margin: 0pt); $ 1/x (x + y) $" | typst compile - o.png