Typst

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Hex.pm Docs

Elixir bindings for the Typst typesetting system, powered by a Rust NIF. Generate PDFs, PNGs, and SVGs from Typst markup directly in your Elixir application.

Features

  • PDF generation — render_to_pdf/3
  • PNG generation — render_to_png/3 (one image per page)
  • SVG generation — render_to_svg/3 (one SVG per page)
  • EEx templating — use familiar Elixir templates to inject dynamic content
  • Table formatting — struct-based API for building Typst tables (Typst.Format.Table)
  • Virtual file system — pass in-memory assets (images, data) without touching disk
  • Font caching — scanned fonts are cached across calls for fast repeated renders
  • Precompiled NIF — no Rust toolchain required for most platforms

Installation

Add typst to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:typst, "~> 0.4"}
  ]
end

Usage

Basic rendering

{:ok, pdf} = Typst.render_to_pdf("= Hello World")

{:ok, [png]} = Typst.render_to_png("= Hello World")

{:ok, [svg]} = Typst.render_to_svg("= Hello World")

EEx templating

{:ok, pdf} = Typst.render_to_pdf(
  "= Report for <%= name %>\nDate: <%= date %>",
  name: "Acme Corp",
  date: "2026-03-07"
)

Tables

alias Typst.Format.Table
alias Typst.Format.Table.Header

table = %Table{
  columns: 3,
  content: [
    %Header{repeat: true, content: ["Name", "Qty", "Price"]},
    ["Widget", "10", "$5.00"],
    ["Gadget", "3", "$12.50"]
  ]
}

{:ok, pdf} = Typst.render_to_pdf("<%= table %>", table: table)

Virtual assets

logo = File.read!("logo.svg")

{:ok, pdf} = Typst.render_to_pdf(
  ~S|#image(read("logo", encoding: none), width: 6cm)|,
  [],
  assets: [logo: logo]
)

Options

All render functions accept these options:

  • :extra_fonts — list of directories to search for additional fonts
  • :root_dir — root directory for resolving file paths (default: ".")
  • :assets — list of {name, binary} pairs for the virtual file system
  • :trim — trim blank lines left by EEx tags (default: false)
  • :cache_fonts — cache scanned fonts across calls (default: true)
  • :pixels_per_pt — pixels per pt unit, only for render_to_png/3 (default: 1.0)
  • :pdf_standards — list of PDF/A standard strings to comply with, only for render_to_pdf/3 (default: [])

Documentation

Full documentation is available at typst.hexdocs.pm.

Building from Source

When you add this package to your mix.exs dependencies, it will by default attempt to use precompiled Rustler assets. To override this behaviour, add {:rustler, ">= 0.0.0"} to your mix.exs, and set the environment variable TYPST_BUILD=true. Alternatively, you can put the following in your config.exs:

config :rustler_precompiled, :force_build, typst: true

Building from source requires a rust toolchain of at least version 1.92.0.

Cutting a new release

  • Make the code changes
  • Merge into main
  • git push
  • Tag the new version and push: git tag v0.x.y && git push --tags
  • Wait for CI to build precompiled binaries
  • mix rustler_precompiled.download Typst.NIF --all --print
  • Checkout the tag: git checkout v0.x.y
  • mix hex.publish — run this manually; Hex now prompts for a 2FA token, so it can't be automated
  • git checkout main

License

Apache-2.0