I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Perceived Problems with LaTeX

  • Many see LaTeX as powerful but antiquated “80s tech”: clunky UI, poor native Unicode (especially for mixed scripts), and fragile whitespace handling.
  • Tooling is a major pain point: multi-pass builds, confusing Makefiles, ephemeral errors fixed by recompiling or nuking build artifacts.
  • Users complain about opaque error messages, slow compiles for large documents, and reliance on brittle packages that age poorly.
  • Others defend LaTeX as still unmatched for math-heavy, book-length work and praise microtype, TikZ, and stable templates, but concede it’s hostile to newcomers.

Typst’s Appeal

  • Reported strengths:
    • Very fast, often incremental compilation and deterministic builds.
    • Cleaner, more modern syntax, fewer auxiliary files, and clearer diagnostics.
    • Layout changes (margins, spacing, footers) and scripting are described as far easier than in LaTeX.
    • Good Unicode and multi-language support for many languages (with CJK still called out as weaker than LaTeX).
  • Used successfully for theses, books, invoices, labels, and generated reports via JSON; praised for being approachable to non-developers (e.g., PMs editing templates).

Math Notation and Typesetting Quality

  • Some are reluctant to adopt Typst because LaTeX math syntax is ubiquitous across tools and platforms.
  • Others strongly prefer Typst’s more concise math syntax and point to packages that emulate LaTeX syntax when needed.
  • Several commenters say Typst’s line-breaking and typesetting are now roughly on par with LaTeX; microtypography is not yet as complete but improving.
  • CJK and very advanced microtype-like features are mentioned as remaining LaTeX advantages.

Tooling, Ecosystem, and Institutional Constraints

  • Journals and conferences typically demand LaTeX/Word sources and official class files; this alone keeps many locked into LaTeX.
  • A few journals now accept Typst, but uptake is still minimal; some users rely on Typst→LaTeX converters for submission.
  • Overleaf, latexmk, Tectonic, TeXstudio, etc. are cited as partial mitigations for LaTeX’s rough tooling.
  • Typst’s core engine is open source; the hosted editor is not. Concerns are raised about long‑term viability and possible paywalled features, but others note the ecosystem and community packages could sustain a fork if needed.

LLMs and the Future of Document Languages

  • LLMs make LaTeX significantly easier (auto-generating TikZ, macros, and debugging errors), which may reduce the motivation to switch to new systems like Typst.
  • Several report that current LLMs are much worse at Typst than LaTeX and often hallucinate syntax, reinforcing status-quo bias.
  • Others use LLMs to auto-format plain text into Typst/Markdown, or worry about AI becoming a primary consumer of text and favor more concise markups.

Culture, Motivation, and Alternatives

  • Some view elaborate LaTeX/Typst setups as procrastination or “gearhead” behavior; others frame it as legitimate attention to professional presentation and robustness (especially for large theses/books).
  • Alternatives mentioned: Markdown + Pandoc, org-mode→LaTeX, ConTeXt, TeXmacs, LyX, Scribble, HTML/CSS-to-PDF tools; each trades off power vs. simplicity.