Help Center
Clear, practical guides for writing, compiling, and sharing LaTeX and Typst projects.
Write Typst online, together
An online Typst editor for writing with co-authors in real time: the PDF compiles in the browser as you type, with packages, citations and AI help.
Start a Typst project
JointTex is an online editor for Typst as well as LaTeX: a Typst project is written, compiled and shared in the browser, with nothing to install.
How to do it
- Open Projects, choose New project and pick Typst on the blank project card. The project starts with main.typ and a references.bib file that main.typ already names with #bibliography.
- Or start from a Typst template: a template is LaTeX or Typst according to its root file, and the project you create from it compiles the same way.
- Bring a Word or Markdown draft in as Typst: choose New project, then Import from files, pick the .docx or .md file and choose Typst for what it becomes.
- A project can hold both languages. Its root file decides which one compiles: a .typ root is compiled by Typst, and Project settings changes the root.
See the PDF as you type
Typst runs in the editor page itself, so the PDF follows your typing a moment after you stop, without a compile button to press.
How to do it
- Auto compile is on from the start in a Typst project. A collaborator's edit recompiles your preview too.
- Errors and warnings are underlined in the source and listed in the Problems tab, and the last PDF that compiled stays on screen until the error is fixed.
- Double-click anywhere in the PDF, or Cmd/Ctrl-click it, to jump to the source that made it, and press {mod+j} to jump from the cursor to the PDF. The positions come from the Typst compiler itself.
- The equation under the cursor is shown typeset as you write it, and the Outline lists the headings of the open file.
- In a browser, Download and print compile again on the server with the same Typst version, so the file you share is the project's own PDF.
Use packages from Typst Universe
Packages published in Typst's registry work as they do anywhere else.
How to do it
- Import a package with #import "@preview/name:version". It is fetched the first time a compile needs it.
- The compile on the server runs without network access, and it can still use any package published under @preview.
- Packages in the @local namespace are not available, because they live on one person's computer. Put the package's files in the project and import them by path instead.
Cite from .bib files
Typst reads the same .bib files as LaTeX: the document names one with #bibliography and cites an entry with @key.
How to do it
- Press {mod+alt+c}, or choose Insert citation, the @ button on the toolbar, to search this project, your library, Crossref and other online sources, Zotero, and your past projects on eligible plans, and insert @key with the entry written into the .bib file.
- Press F2 on an @key, or on the key in the .bib or .yml file, to rename it: the entry and every citation follow.
- To verify the entries you cite against Crossref and arXiv, open Project checks and choose References.
Write together
Co-authors edit a Typst project at the same time, as they do a LaTeX one, and every change keeps its author.
How to do it
- Invite co-authors from the Share dialog; each sees the others' cursors and edits live.
- Select a passage and comment on it, turn on Track my edits in Review so your changes arrive as suggestions, and go back to any earlier version from History.
- Compare two versions as a marked-up PDF: typdiff underlines what was added and strikes through what was deleted in every changed .typ file.
Ask the AI assistant
The assistant knows when a project is written in Typst and writes Typst.
How to do it
- Open the AI panel and ask for a table, a figure, a show rule or a fix to a compile error.
- With Track review on, as it is by default, every edit it makes is marked, for you to keep or discard one at a time or all at once.
- From the Problems tab, ask it to explain or fix one error or all of them; it edits the source and compiles again to check its fix.
Work in the desktop app and offline
A Typst project needs no TeX installation, in the browser or in the desktop app.
How to do it
- In the desktop app a Typst project compiles in the app's window as you type, and the PDF you save or print is that same one, with no connection needed.
- In the browser, a project you have opened is kept for offline use, so you can keep writing when the connection drops.
What works only in LaTeX files for now
A few tools read or write LaTeX source and do not yet work in a .typ file.
How to do it
- Format Document and Copy As are for .tex files.
- The symbol grid inserts LaTeX commands. The image button also recognizes formulas for .typ files and converts them to Typst before insertion.
- A table or image pasted into a .typ file is not converted: a table arrives as plain text, and an image is not stored.