I’m curious how did the submission go? Given that journals don’t accept Typst sources right now. Was it a single-author paper?
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No, submitted a PDF version. Most journals in my field (biology) don’t even accept LaTeX, they prefer word docs 
for final submissions. But almost all accept PDF for initial submission, and I’ve had good success using Adobe tools to convert PDF to docx
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Interesting. If I ever had to submit to a journal that didn’t accept LaTeX, and especially if I needed the final version to be in Word, I would definitely author it using pandoc’s markdown flavor (what Quarto uses as well). It’s pretty much equivalent to LaTeX, with full support for cross-referencing, citations, etc.
I’ve been doing this for proposal/reports/abstracts that needed to be in Word, for quite some time.
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In my experience, for proposals they often provide you with some word document template that you must follow. So I guess in that case it would be difficult to convert from Markdown ?
Did you have a nice experience collaborating with your co-authors in the typst.app web editor ?
Not really. Pandoc is very good at custom styling with Word. You have to create a template file with all the desired formatting in it.
There’s always the option of doing last-minute fine tuning directly in Word.
One time, I had a very specific question-response template where the questions had a lot of weird formatting (colors, different bullet point styles), and there I augmented the process with a little Python script that concatenated their questions with my generated docx files with the answers. There’s Python libraries that do that type of docx concatenation, and then it was easy to tie together with a Makefile.
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Yes, with the caveat that I tried using their git integration (a paid feature) and it seriously screwed up the manuscript a couple of times. Lines got duplicated, some work got overwritten/ undone etc.
So I would not recommend that - otherwise it was quite nice.
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I’m using their Git integration right now. There is a button which I manually click to push changes to Github whenever I want. So far it has not broken for me.
You’re saying this broke for you? Only when various people were editing simultaneously on the web app or also when you were solo-editing ? Were you only pushing to the Github repo, or you also pulled from the Github repo to the typst.app server?
Yeah, no one ever was doing simultaneous editing, but was doing both pushing and pulling. Not sure when exactly the mistakes happened, but it was miserable
FWIW, I’ve been using the Github sync feature so far without issues. But I’m not doing simultaneous editing, and I only push to the Github repo (never pull).
I can also say that Typst has been a joy so far for what I’m using it (writing lecture notes). And I’ve only been using it for a few days, but it’s very easy to learn.
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Is it possible to use Typst via VSCode on Linux? There are some VSCode extensions for Typst, but I did not figure out how to use them yet.
Any hints?
Sure ! I use the Tinymist extension on Windows and Linux. It includes a typst compiler. I have also installed Typst locally to use it in the terminal. It works like a charm.
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Yes! Tinymist is definitely the way to go. Remember to choose “show preview” (or something like that), instead of looking at the pdf output. That gives you real-time live preview.
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A LyX-like editor for typst:
Also: After using it for a while, I agree with @kevbonham , typst is the Julia of typesetting !
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Possibly, but at this point typst is the Julia 0.3 of typesetting. Very promising, but only for the really dedicated who are willing to put up with bugs, lack of functionality, and documentation.
I find the lack of offline docs particularly challenging. Even when I have internet, looking up something online breaks the flow, compared to just searching the info file for LaTeX2e in Emacs. And when I am in a location without good internet, I get stuck on minor issues.
I have no doubt that these gaps will be filled eventually; the community is very vibrant and the project moves fast. But at this point typst is not a LaTeX replacement.
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I’ve been using it to write some lecture notes, and so far it’s very nice. I have not encountered any bugs or lack of particular functionality.
I’m happy I’m using typst over LaTeX, it’s much easier.
I think the main blocking point is that journals should begin accepting Typst sources. But they are also moving (slowly) in that front, see Which scientific journals are accepting Typst files as article submission at current date? - #7 by matcha25 - Questions - Typst Forum.
I think it really depends on your needs. For me, it replaces LaTeX. I have created templates for presentations using Touying, report, thesis, journal (elsearticle). That being said, if you heavily rely on TikZ, I think that CeTz is not mature enough, even if it is very usable.
As said @e3c6 the main blocking point is journal submission.
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The other major drawback is Typst is not stable enough. The API is changing vibrantly. I have used a template 3 months ago and now it is broken and I don’t know how to fix it.
They seem to have a detailed changelog here: Changelog – Typst Documentation. Indeed it seems they are introducing breaking changes quite frequently.
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Yes, they have changelog but it is very technical and thus quite difficult to understand. In particular, they have no examples on how to fix the breaking. Or better, they can provide some kind of automatic tool.
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