Build Typst

build-typst.md

Typst to PDF on MacOS and Windows

Typst can be installed on MacOS with brew. Typst package for Sublime Text provides the build setup needed to compile typ file to a pdf. For older MacOS, or Windows, see below.

Using Sublime Text on older MacOS

My 12+y old laptop, long out-of-date and warranty, is better than a Raspberry Pi for desktop computing in every practicable way. For writing, editing, scripting, typesetting, and for terminal applications, it works just fine.

Last October, I replaced its cable-frayed, obsolete power adapter with a USB-C charger, thus making it safe to use.

MacBook Air (mid-2011) with its (old and new) chargers

I was looking to get Typst working on this Mac recently. Instead of the conventional route (via either Rust toolchain or Homebrew — both large and unnecessary on old Macs facing dependency issues and obsolescence), I discovered a simpler way. That Typst can also be installed as a py package. With this, pdf documents can be produced like so:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import typst

# compile `document.typ` and save as `document.pdf`
typst.compile("document.typ", output="document.pdf")

Using docopt, this can be rewritten to accept a filename as an argument at command line:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""Compile Typst document
ctd.py 2024 ckunte

Usage: ctd.py (-f <file>)
       ctd.py --help
       ctd.py --version

Options:
  -h, --help  Show this help
  -f, --file   Specify Typst input file to compile (required)

"""
import typst
from docopt import docopt

def main(typstfile):
    pdffile = f"{typstfile.rsplit('.', 1)[0]}.pdf"
    print(f"Compiling {typstfile} to {pdffile}...", end="")
    typst.compile(typstfile, output=pdffile)
    print("done.")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    args = docopt(__doc__, 
        version="Compile Typst document, 0.1")
    main(args["<file>"])

Pre-install dependencies like so first:

$ python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade docopt typst

and the above script (ctd.py) can now be run as:

$ python3 ctd.py -f document.typ
Compiling document.typ to document.pdf...done.

Custom Typst-py.sublime-build with typst-py and ctd.py:

{   
  "shell_cmd" : "python3 \\${HOME}/ctd.py -f \"$file_name\"",
  "selector" : "source.typ",
  "working_dir" : "$file_path"
}

This above allows one to type-set with Cmd+B.

Using Sublime Text on Windows (Cygwin)

Download and place typst.exe under a path accessible from Cygwin first. To be able to build via Sublime Text, see below.

Custom Typst-Cyg.sublime-build via Cygwin:

{   
  "shell_cmd" : "typst compile \"$file_name\"",
  "selector" : "source.typ",
  "path" : "C:\\Cygwin\\bin;$path",
  "working_dir" : "$file_path"
}

The approach should be similar for WSL, i.e., park typst for linux in an accessible path, e.g. /usr/local/bin, then write a build file with appropriate path.

Using GitHub Actions

A workflow is a set of instructions to be carried out as actions in a container provided by GitHub. These instructions are to be based inside a subfolder of the repository like so .github/workflows/release.yml, whose contents are as below:

name: Build Typst document
on: 
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*.*.*"

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: prep typst
        uses: typst-community/setup-typst@v3
      - run: typst compile m1.typ

      - name: release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
        with:
          files: |
            m1.pdf