Polytype: A Rosetta Stone for typesetting engines(polytype.dev) |
Polytype: A Rosetta Stone for typesetting engines(polytype.dev) |
Typst is a new entry in the document typesetting field.
If we're going to go that route, neither is LaTeX a typesetting engine; it is a macro package built on the typesetting engine of TeX.
If have not searched for (LaTeX-)alternative typesetting engines/systems (nor are an avid HN visitor; all those had at least one popular submission here), unsurprising to not have heard of them. Lout strangely omitted though, yes.
Html + css or markdown for that matter are only the interface layer, to compare them this way you'd need to specify an implementation. Minute typographic details are still one of the places where browsers diverge from each other in their behavior.
1 : a selection of passages used to help learn a language
2 : a volume of selected passages or stories of an author
One could say the same for different TeX "formats" like LaTeX or Plain TeX which can be all be rendered with multiple mostly-compatible TeX engines. If you are familiar with TeX internals, it's outputting layouts of boxes for letters (TFM metrics files for fonts) inside pages (DVI files) that get filled later with bitmapped glyphs from bitmap font files (PK fonts). This is entirely different for PDF/PS-based TeX engines which use vector sizing and which are not identical to original TeX.
There are certainly more nuances (eg. hinting for vector fonts that aligns curves to pixel/dot grid), but languages and layout engines are usually tightly coupled.
My point was that you don't need anything extra: HTML + CSS define a lot of the laying-out definitions, they are ubiquitouos, and rendering for the screen requires "typesetting" just as much as it does for paper.