typst-desktop/README.md

Typst Desktop

A desktop editor for Typst. Your documents stay as plain files on your own drive, and can optionally sync to a TypstDrive server so the same notes open on any device.

The Typst compiler is built into the app — there is nothing extra to install to write and export documents.

Features

• Local first: Every document is an ordinary file in a folder you choose. Nothing is locked in a database, and any other editor can open the same files.
• Two views: A file viewer for browsing folders, projects, and documents, and an editor view for writing.
• Single files or projects: Open a lone .typ file, or a project folder with its own typst.toml, chapters, bibliography, and assets.
• Live preview: The preview recompiles as you type. Saving is not required to see changes.
• Editor: Typst syntax highlighting, snippet autocompletion, a formatting toolbar, inline diagnostics, and optional tinymist language server support.
• Cloud sync: Link a project to a TypstDrive Space to push and pull changes, with three-way merge and a conflict resolver for files edited in both places.
• Images and fonts: Import files from anywhere on disk, or drag and drop them in. A shared asset library makes images and fonts available to every project.
• Thumbnails: Documents show their first compiled page; images show a preview.
• Image viewer: Open images full screen with zoom and folder navigation.

Storage

By default the workspace lives at ~/typst (for example, /home/blob/typst). Change it in Settings.

Inside the workspace:

Path	Contents
<workspace>/	Your folders, projects, and documents.
<workspace>/.assets/	Shared images and fonts available to every project.

Application data — settings, sync state, and the thumbnail cache — is kept in a SQLite database in the platform's app-data directory. Documents themselves are never stored there.

Fonts and Images

Fonts and images work the same way as in TypstDrive. A file is available to the compiler by its name.

Fonts

Import .ttf, .otf, .ttc, or .otc files through Assets, or place them in a folder beside your document. Typst Desktop reads the family name embedded in the file and registers every weight and style under it.

#set text(font: "JetBrains Mono")

The toolbar's font dropdown lists every family available to the open document, including the fonts bundled with the app. If a family is not listed, it has not been picked up, and the name in your document will not resolve.

Images

Reference an image by its file name:

#image("logo.png", width: 50%)

Images in the shared asset library are available to every project. Images inside a project folder are available to that project and override an asset of the same name.

Cloud Sync

Sync is optional. Without it the app is entirely local.

1. Open Settings, enter your TypstDrive server URL, and sign in.
2. In the file viewer, choose Upload to cloud on a project to create a Space from it.
3. Use Sync in the editor to pull remote changes and push local ones.

A project already in the cloud can be brought to another device from the Cloud tab in the file viewer.

Conflicts

Sync pulls before it pushes. When a file changed both locally and in the cloud, a three-way merge is attempted against the version last synced. If the merge cannot be resolved automatically, a conflict resolver opens where you can keep either version or edit the merged result. Binary files cannot be merged and keep the cloud version.

Language Server

Typst Desktop can use tinymist for hover documentation, go-to-definition, and richer diagnostics. It is not bundled — install it and make sure it is on your PATH:

curl -L -o ~/.cargo/bin/tinymist \
  https://github.com/Myriad-Dreamin/tinymist/releases/latest/download/tinymist-linux-x64 \
  && chmod +x ~/.cargo/bin/tinymist

The editor header shows the language server status. Without tinymist the editor still has syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and compiler diagnostics.

Development

The app compiles Typst from source, so clone the compiler into TypstDrive's typst/ folder first — both projects share it:

git clone https://github.com/typst/typst.git ../typstdrive/typst

Then:

bun install
bun run tauri dev

To build a release bundle:

bun run tauri build