Is it possible to pass arguments to Typst CLI?

[JosephBARBIERDARNAL]

Description

The recent version 0.14 of Typst brings us many accessibility features. In particular, you can now apply the PDF/UA-1 standard to your PDF files for maximum accessibility. See: https://typst.app/blog/2025/accessible-pdf#more-checks-for-maximum-accessibility-compliance

The problem is that this is not the default behavior and you have to specify it using --pdf-standard ua-1 in their CLI.

I know that Quarto still uses Typst 0.13.x, but I assume it will be updated at some point, and I don't think it's currently possible to pass additional arguments to the Typst CLI when doing quarto render (I think it works when using quarto typst compile).

For now, my workaround is to render in Quarto with the “keep-typ: true” flag and then compile with typst cli. This works fine, but quickly becomes cumbersome when doing parameterized reports.

To summarize:

• Accessibility is important (obviously), but it is also mandatory in some institutions for legal reasons. I mention this simply to emphasize that it is an important feature.
• Is there (already) a way to specify arguments to typst cli using quarto render?
• Will Quarto 1.9 integrate typst 0.14 or keep 0.13?

Edit: If that helps, my "ideal" workflow would be either having environment variable(s) or be able to specify this in the yaml front matter like this:

---
format:
  typst:
    pdf-standard: ua1
---

[mcanouil]

Accessibility is important (obviously), but it is also mandatory in some institutions for legal reasons. I mention this simply to emphasize that it is an important feature.

The Quarto team is well aware of this (and not limited to Typst) thus why 1.8 includes the axe tool to check accessibility (https://quarto.org/docs/blog/posts/2025-10-13-1.8-release/#accessibility-checks-for-html).

Is there (already) a way to specify arguments to typst cli using quarto render?

No there is not for now.

The only binary that has a way to pass flags is R: QUARTO_KNITR_RSCRIPT_ARGS (https://prerelease.quarto.org/docs/advanced/environment-vars.html)

This being said, it's very likely that Quarto will add the flag by default.

Will Quarto 1.9 integrate typst 0.14 or keep 0.13?

The answer is the same as for every dependencies: no timeline, update at most once per release assuming no major breakage.

• https://github.com/orgs/quarto-dev/discussions/13637

[JosephBARBIERDARNAL]

Great, thanks for all the info!

[mcanouil]

Be sure to follow the change log to see when Typst 0.14 is included.
Note that Pandoc support for it is also required.

[cderv]

Passing argument to typst compile seems like a good idea for advanced use case. We do allow it for latexmk and pdf engine. (knitr is not the only one by the way). We should probably allow it for typst. This looks like a good feature request to me. (pdf-engine-opts option if what is used).

This is related to me about

• [FR] Rethink the way to output PDF from any format.  #7039

I think it works when using quarto typst compile

yes you could render to .typ file and then call quarto typst compile <args> <typ file>.

[cderv]

I opened

• Allow to pass arguments to Typst CLI as it is possible for pdf engine #13683