Typst. A new LaTeX era.

When I started in college - computer engineering - one of my first classes was Mathematical Logic.

I had a very good teacher who unfortunally doesn't teach in my university anymore. And of course I won't say his/her name here. But, let's call this person Bottle.

It was online because a terrible virus from China, but it is a topic for other article.

What metters here is that this professor presented me a new tool called LaTeX. And it was awesome.

As a windows user, I searched and downloaded MikTex, which is a great tool as I was a begginer (but is also good for non begginers). For me, it was a Word killer!!!

At this point, pause and reflect that I was too young. Killing word is like killing Microsoft!

In my academic live I have always using LaTeX for my homework productions. Sometimes it looks ok, but others it was just a stubbornness of my part! (I learned a new english word! Stubbornness.)

For example, for homeworks I could (and should obviously) write by hand and scan with a smartphone I decided to write a LaTeX. But then the work scales to drawing graphs (an many of them), which obligated me to learn Tikz. Ok, it's cool to learn it, but when you have small deadlines, it's like to learn how to sum today when you have an Calculus test tomorrow. And, in the half of work, when all my collegues had done I asked: "WTF am I doing?"

So, before we start, look carefully for the tool you are using (or trying). Please, ask yourself: "Is this the most efficient way to achieve my goals?" or I'm just looking for problems or trying to be different of everyone because it's cool. I had better opportunities, even with homeworks, to write in LaTeX, as you also will (or Typst!).

With that said, let's to the point. Typst The link goes to the documentation of this amazing tool for creating beautiful PDFs. In the same way I never use Overleaf (ok, for search only) I like using typst locally.

If you came from LaTeX, you must be used to some old tools which sometimes looks like a computer virus. Here you may have some difficulties too, but I judge there are less frictions.

At first you need RUST. Yes, but you don't need to know how to program in this strange language. Just install it. I won't put any link here. You have Google!

After install Rust, you need the Typst codebase (yes, it's open source). The source is here. So, just a git clone https://github.com/typst/typst works fine.

Now, you build it! In the README.md has instructions. I suppose you know how to read! RTFM!

Congratulations! You have the executable file. Now you can add to your env vars or do whaterer you want. I'm here to present you the typst.

I personally call it "the LaTeX of 21 century" because it is! It makes write an academic essay like write a README.md file. You can add graphs, figures, and more, without import many and many libraries, because it's native. Also, it generates small pdfs.

Take a look at a code example!

#text(font: "New Computer Modern")[
    = Background
    In the case of glaciers, fluid
    dynamics principles can be used
    to understand how the movement
    and behaviour of the ice is
    influenced by factors such as
    temperature, pressure, and the
    presence of other fluids (such as
    water).
]

Yes! Just these lines of code works!

You don't need a "Preamble" or anytyng like that. It's just there, for your use and joy!

The = sign indicates a new title. How many equals signs, lower the title will be.

I invite you to discover more. They also have an Overleaf like platform. Enter the documents and see if it interest you.