Is this for me?

If you use latex (and like the concept compared to wysiwyg) then these are some reasons you might better like typst:

• you feel latex (and online solutions) are slow (and expensive) to compile,
• you feel latex is too verbose for simple things, e.g. compared to markdown for lists,
• you think latex math syntax is amazing… but actually don’t know it can be better,
• you feel that customizing things require to find/select the right packages, work around quirks, etc,
• you feel it is difficult to start “programming” in latex, i.e. to create your own abstractions to write cleaner documents.

Typst

Here are some explanations that I would have liked to read to better start with typst.

NB: things styled are rendered with typst.

• Typst is like latex but rebuilt from scratch to be simpler and more modern.
• You can use it online at https://typst.app/ or install it locally from https://typst.app/open-source/#download and use integrated tools e.g. the vscode “tinymist” plugin.
• It uses a markdown-like syntax (but-not-exactly) for very common things, like paragraphs, lists, and headers.
• It has modes
  • by default, it is in “text mode”, where you can write text, lists, headers, etc.
    • example: *bold* and _italic_ text and `monospace` text.
    • yields:
  • you can enter code mode using # and use functions, variables, etc.
    • example computation #(1 + 1) yields .
    • example function call #text(orange, "hello") yields (which appears blue with the dark mode of this page).
    • you can switch back to text mode within code mode using square brackets [], e.g., #text(blue, [*1*+_1_]) yields .
  • you can enter “math mode” by using $...$ for inline math,
    • the syntax is different from latex (for good reasons)
    • a way to learn can be to convert latex to typst, using e.g.
      https://qwinsi.github.io/tex2typst-webapp/.
    • inline math $E=m c^2$ gives .
    • block math $ E=m c^2 $ with spaces after/before dollars
    • fractions and groups made simpler
      $4 / 3 pi R^3 = (4 pi R^3) / 3$ yields .
    • in math mode, one can use variables (like any of the greek letters) or symbols, potentially with modifiers… e.g.
      $ EE_(x tilde q) [f(x)] eq.def integral_x f(x) q(x) d x $
    • you can use quotes to insert text in math mode, e.g.,
      $E = "mass" times c^2$ gives
    • you can also call functions, and in math mode the parameters are passed “raw”, so
      $sqrt(x)$ yields as it does not consider x as a variable but rather as raw input
    • you can switch back to code mode if needed, e.g.,
      $sqrt(#(str(1 + 1)))$ gives (needing an explicit cast).
• And much more including custom functions, show rules, set rules, diagrams/plots with cetz, loading data from yaml files…