4 ms·

Real-Time LuaTeX: Recompiling Large Documents in 1ms [pdf]

66 points by amichail 3mo ago

VorpalWay 3mo ago
> Benchmarks show that per-paragraph recompilation achieves O(1) latency, constant regardless of document size, whereas Typst’s [3] incremental compilation scales linearly (O(n)). > The tradeoff is temporary inconsistency: pages the user is not viewing may lag until a background compile converges, [...] There doesn't seem to be any reason functionality like this couldn't also be added to Typst though. In general the authors of this paper seem dismissive of typst, but Typst also fixes so many other things about LaTeX, like the awful syntax. Not sure why they act like that.
- nicce 3mo ago
  > Not sure why they act like that. They seem to launch paid competitor.
- aragilar 3mo ago
  The answer is fairly obvious, Typst (like ConTeXt) is not LaTeX. Typst is a perfectly fine solution if you're giving the typeset output (i.e. a PDF) to someone, it not a solution if you need to give the document source to someone (if the person expects LaTeX, or .doc(x), or some other format). Many of the issues people raise with LaTeX are due to needing to pass on the document source to someone (otherwise you could use whatever packages or engines you wanted), but that is fundamental to interoperability and why LaTeX (and Markdown) stick around.
- SkiFire13 3mo ago
  > There doesn't seem to be any reason functionality like this couldn't also be added to Typst though. If I have to guess it's because the temporal inconsistency tradeoff can actually affect the current page too, since it might depend on the previous pages for layout, references, etc etc. Typst on the other hand aims to have no inconsistencies due to incremental compilation.
- gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
  > There doesn't seem to be any reason functionality like this couldn't also be added to Typst though. Correct, and the paper author even suggested that they could add that in their presentation earlier today [0]. > In general the authors of this paper seem dismissive of typst, but Typst also fixes so many other things about LaTeX, like the awful syntax. Not sure why they act like that. Well this was a presentation at a (La)TeX conference [1], and this is a preprint for a (La)TeX journal [2], so this specific audience is more interested in hearing about extensions to LaTeX than about Typst. (This certainly isn't a requirement though—we've happily accepted articles and presentations about non-TeX software, since we always like to hear about what's going on elsewhere) [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=2ls7VrAIE9WCU5kK&t=11529 https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=2ls7VrAIE9WCU5kK... (starts at 3:12:09) [1]: https://tug.org/tug2026/ https://tug.org/tug2026/ [2]: https://tug.org/TUGboat/ https://tug.org/TUGboat/
froh 3mo ago
the purpose (from the paper): > texlode, the browser-based book editor built on this architecture, is scheduled for public release in October 2026. It provides collaborative editing via conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs), manu- script import from Word, proceedings management, cover design tools, and print-ready PDF output iden- tical to standard LuaLATEX. The accompanying con- ference talk demonstrates the editor in action. For details: texlode.com. and also: > (section) 6 Comparison to Typst
mkl 3mo ago
No mention of TikZ. Realtime TikZ would be really useful to me. I will wait and see what their https://texlode.com https://texlode.com service is like for that.
- gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
  The author said that TikZ works correctly in a message during their presentation [0]: > 3:27:36 @lodepublishing : I have tested tikz but not yet tcolorbox. TikZ works, with some wiring. But a different tool was posted here a few weeks ago with real-time support for TikZ [1] if you're interested in something that you can use immediately. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48645437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48645437
  - mkl 3mo ago
    Oh good, thanks. [1] is a totally different kind of tool that generates unmaintainable code full of absolute positions.
mproud 3mo ago
Personally, I am enjoying using Typst.
- astrobiased 3mo ago
  Same, so much in fact that I have used it for my website now and it works beautifully for graphics and formulas.
  - g8oz 3mo ago
    What packages have you found useful?
zhxiaoliang 3mo ago
Typst taking 300ms to do 300 pages cannot be seen as 4FPS - you don't treat the sum of 300 pages as single frame, LOL. And laying out a single paragraph is not 1ms for a whole document either. The paper is otherwise pretty good, but these rhetorics are probably not necessary, IMO.
- pama 3mo ago
  It is no rhetoric. It is the time spent when working interactively on a thesis project with one software vs the other.
FullGarden_S 3mo ago
This is great but I feel like the potential is underused. I know its a lot of work but I think we all could desperately use an interactive LaTeX notebook instead of limiting it to only the PDF backend and this work helps a lot with achieving that endeavour. Though it'll be limited to LuaTeX, it'll still be quite something.
- pjmlp 3mo ago
  Back in the 90's, one of my professors had such software on Solaris. The experience was just like using Word, but with LaTeX. Unfortunately not the kind of stuff the vi and emacs folks care about. Although LyX comes close.
  - gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
    Was it BaKoMa TeX [0] perhaps? [0]: https://bakoma-tex.daniel-aldrich.ca/home https://bakoma-tex.daniel-aldrich.ca/home
    - pjmlp 3mo ago
      I don't remember the name, this one also looks cool.
xvilka 3mo ago
Looks like layout/format of this PDF is heavily broken - line overflows and out of the context/layout line at the end...
- gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
  This is (surprisingly) intentional; see my other comment [0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966387
WolfOliver 3mo ago
unfortunately the pdf itself has some typesetting issues. Whats about all those overflowing boxes and the small black boxes all over the document?
- gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
  You can't tell from the URL, but this link is to a preprint [0], and the bad boxes there are intentional, since we compile all the preprints in draft mode [1]. The final article will be published some time in August [2], and should be perfectly typeset. [0]: https://tug.org/tug2026/program.html#:~:text=Clemens%C2%A0Lode https://tug.org/tug2026/program.html#:~:text=Clemens%C2%A0Lo... [1]: https://tug.org/tug2026/cfp.html#preprints https://tug.org/tug2026/cfp.html#preprints [2]: https://tug.org/TUGboat/#:~:text=vol%2E47%2C%20no%2E2%20%28TUG%2726%20proceedings%29%3A%20July%C2%A026%2C%202026%2E https://tug.org/TUGboat/#:~:text=vol%2E47%2C%20no%2E2%20%28T...
gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
This was presented earlier today, and you can view the recorded video at [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=zIePpHrC6TEZpc_I&t=10366 https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=zIePpHrC6TEZpc_I... (starts at 2:52:46) [1] [1]: Once the conference is over, I'll separate each presentation out into separate videos, but I'm busy at the moment with filming the current presentations :).

66 points by amichail 3mo ago

> Benchmarks show that per-paragraph recompilation achieves O(1) latency, constant regardless of document size, whereas Typst’s [3] incremental compilation scales linearly (O(n)). > The tradeoff is temporary inconsistency: pages the user is not viewing may lag until a background compile converges, [...] There doesn't seem to be any reason functionality like this couldn't also be added to Typst though. In general the authors of this paper seem dismissive of typst, but Typst also fixes so many other things about LaTeX, like the awful syntax. Not sure why they act like that.

nicce 3mo ago
> Not sure why they act like that. They seem to launch paid competitor.
aragilar 3mo ago
The answer is fairly obvious, Typst (like ConTeXt) is not LaTeX. Typst is a perfectly fine solution if you're giving the typeset output (i.e. a PDF) to someone, it not a solution if you need to give the document source to someone (if the person expects LaTeX, or .doc(x), or some other format). Many of the issues people raise with LaTeX are due to needing to pass on the document source to someone (otherwise you could use whatever packages or engines you wanted), but that is fundamental to interoperability and why LaTeX (and Markdown) stick around.
SkiFire13 3mo ago
> There doesn't seem to be any reason functionality like this couldn't also be added to Typst though. If I have to guess it's because the temporal inconsistency tradeoff can actually affect the current page too, since it might depend on the previous pages for layout, references, etc etc. Typst on the other hand aims to have no inconsistencies due to incremental compilation.
gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
> There doesn't seem to be any reason functionality like this couldn't also be added to Typst though. Correct, and the paper author even suggested that they could add that in their presentation earlier today [0]. > In general the authors of this paper seem dismissive of typst, but Typst also fixes so many other things about LaTeX, like the awful syntax. Not sure why they act like that. Well this was a presentation at a (La)TeX conference [1], and this is a preprint for a (La)TeX journal [2], so this specific audience is more interested in hearing about extensions to LaTeX than about Typst. (This certainly isn't a requirement though—we've happily accepted articles and presentations about non-TeX software, since we always like to hear about what's going on elsewhere) [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=2ls7VrAIE9WCU5kK&t=11529 https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=2ls7VrAIE9WCU5kK... (starts at 3:12:09) [1]: https://tug.org/tug2026/ https://tug.org/tug2026/ [2]: https://tug.org/TUGboat/ https://tug.org/TUGboat/

froh 3mo ago

the purpose (from the paper): > texlode, the browser-based book editor built on this architecture, is scheduled for public release in October 2026. It provides collaborative editing via conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs), manu- script import from Word, proceedings management, cover design tools, and print-ready PDF output iden- tical to standard LuaLATEX. The accompanying con- ference talk demonstrates the editor in action. For details: texlode.com. and also: > (section) 6 Comparison to Typst

mkl 3mo ago

No mention of TikZ. Realtime TikZ would be really useful to me. I will wait and see what their https://texlode.com https://texlode.com service is like for that.

gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
The author said that TikZ works correctly in a message during their presentation [0]: > 3:27:36 @lodepublishing : I have tested tikz but not yet tcolorbox. TikZ works, with some wiring. But a different tool was posted here a few weeks ago with real-time support for TikZ [1] if you're interested in something that you can use immediately. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48645437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48645437
- mkl 3mo ago
  Oh good, thanks. [1] is a totally different kind of tool that generates unmaintainable code full of absolute positions.

mproud 3mo ago

Personally, I am enjoying using Typst.

astrobiased 3mo ago
Same, so much in fact that I have used it for my website now and it works beautifully for graphics and formulas.
- g8oz 3mo ago
  What packages have you found useful?

zhxiaoliang 3mo ago

Typst taking 300ms to do 300 pages cannot be seen as 4FPS - you don't treat the sum of 300 pages as single frame, LOL. And laying out a single paragraph is not 1ms for a whole document either. The paper is otherwise pretty good, but these rhetorics are probably not necessary, IMO.

pama 3mo ago
It is no rhetoric. It is the time spent when working interactively on a thesis project with one software vs the other.

FullGarden_S 3mo ago

This is great but I feel like the potential is underused. I know its a lot of work but I think we all could desperately use an interactive LaTeX notebook instead of limiting it to only the PDF backend and this work helps a lot with achieving that endeavour. Though it'll be limited to LuaTeX, it'll still be quite something.

pjmlp 3mo ago
Back in the 90's, one of my professors had such software on Solaris. The experience was just like using Word, but with LaTeX. Unfortunately not the kind of stuff the vi and emacs folks care about. Although LyX comes close.
- gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
  Was it BaKoMa TeX [0] perhaps? [0]: https://bakoma-tex.daniel-aldrich.ca/home https://bakoma-tex.daniel-aldrich.ca/home
  - pjmlp 3mo ago
    I don't remember the name, this one also looks cool.

xvilka 3mo ago

Looks like layout/format of this PDF is heavily broken - line overflows and out of the context/layout line at the end...

gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
This is (surprisingly) intentional; see my other comment [0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966387

WolfOliver 3mo ago

unfortunately the pdf itself has some typesetting issues. Whats about all those overflowing boxes and the small black boxes all over the document?

gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
You can't tell from the URL, but this link is to a preprint [0], and the bad boxes there are intentional, since we compile all the preprints in draft mode [1]. The final article will be published some time in August [2], and should be perfectly typeset. [0]: https://tug.org/tug2026/program.html#:~:text=Clemens%C2%A0Lode https://tug.org/tug2026/program.html#:~:text=Clemens%C2%A0Lo... [1]: https://tug.org/tug2026/cfp.html#preprints https://tug.org/tug2026/cfp.html#preprints [2]: https://tug.org/TUGboat/#:~:text=vol%2E47%2C%20no%2E2%20%28TUG%2726%20proceedings%29%3A%20July%C2%A026%2C%202026%2E https://tug.org/TUGboat/#:~:text=vol%2E47%2C%20no%2E2%20%28T...

gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago

This was presented earlier today, and you can view the recorded video at [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=zIePpHrC6TEZpc_I&t=10366 https://www.youtube.com/live/6riWbnT0grs?si=zIePpHrC6TEZpc_I... (starts at 2:52:46) [1] [1]: Once the conference is over, I'll separate each presentation out into separate videos, but I'm busy at the moment with filming the current presentations :).