Build

These are instructions for setting Sublime Text up to build (i.e., compile, run, or type-set) a source to produce some output. Owing to different file paths, these would be different obviously for different systems. In all of these, be sure to adjust paths as necessary.

Select Tools > Build System > New Build System…, and replace the entire pre-populated instructions with the following respectively. With a source file open in Sublime Text, Build is invoked with either Ctrl b (Windows) or Cmd b (MacOS).

1. LaTeX (MacOS) LaTeX-Mac.sublime-build:

    {
      "cmd": ["/Library/TeX/texbin/xelatex", "$file"],
      "selector": "text.tex.latex"
    }
   

2. LaTeX (Windows WSL) LaTeX-WSL.sublime-build:

    {
      "cmd" : ["bash", "-c", "/usr/local/texlive/2022/bin/x86_64-linux/xelatex ${file_name}"],
      "shell" : true,
      "working_dir" : "${file_path}",
      "selector" : "text.tex.latex"
    }
   

3. LaTeX (Windows Cygwin) LaTeX-Cyg.sublime-build:

    {   
      "shell_cmd" : "xelatex \"$file_name\"",
      "selector" : "source.tex",
      "path" : "C:\\Cygwin\\<path-to-xelatex>;$path",
      "working_dir" : "$file_path"
    }
   

4. LaTeX (GitHub Actions) rel.yml:

   A workflow is a set of instructions to be run as actions in a container by GitHub. Save it under the repository like so .github/workflows/rel.yml. The build is triggered when a commit has a tag number (e.g. v1.0.3) with tag pushed to GitHub.

    name: Build LaTeX document
    on: 
    push:
        tags:
        - "v*.*.*"
   
    permissions:
    contents: write
    
    jobs:
    build_latex:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        steps:
        - name: Set up Git repository
            uses: actions/checkout@v4
        - name: Compile LaTeX document
            uses: xu-cheng/latex-action@v3
            with:
            root_file: test.tex
            latexmk_use_xelatex: true
        - name: release
            uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
            if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
            with:
            files: |
                test.pdf
   

5. Python (Windows) Python-Win.sublime-build:

    {   
      "shell_cmd" : "python \"$file_name\"",
      "selector" : "source.py",
      "interactive": true,
      "path" : "C:\\path_to_python_binary_folder;$path",
      "working_dir" : "$file_path"
    }
   

6. Typst (Windows) Typst-Win.sublime-build:

    {   
      "shell_cmd" : "typst compile \"$file_name\"",
      "selector" : "source.typ",
      "path" : "C:\\path_to_typst_binary_folder;$path",
      "working_dir" : "$file_path"
    }
   

7. Typst-py Typst-py.sublime-build:

    {   
      "shell_cmd" : "python3 \\${HOME}/ctd.py -f \"$file_name\"",
      "selector" : "source.typ",
      "working_dir" : "$file_path"
    }
   

   This is if for reasons Typst cannot be installed on your system, but Python can be, then Typst can be used via the typst-py package. The above needs this script ctd.py to work:

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
    # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
   
    """Compile Typst document
    ctd.py ckunte
   
    Usage: ctd.py (-f <file>)
           ctd.py --help
           ctd.py --version
   
    Options:
      -h, --help  Show this help
      -f, --file   Specify Typst input file to compile (required)
   
    """
    import typst
    from docopt import docopt
   
    def main(typstfile):
        pdffile = f"{typstfile.rsplit('.', 1)[0]}.pdf"
        print(f"Compiling {typstfile} to {pdffile}...", end="")
        typst.compile(typstfile, output=pdffile)
        print("done.")
   
    if __name__ == '__main__':
        args = docopt(__doc__, 
            version="Compile Typst document, 0.1")
        main(args["<file>"])
   

8. Typst (GitHub Actions) .github/workflows/rel.yml:

    name: Build Typst document
    on: 
      push:
        tags:
          - "v*.*.*"
   
    permissions:
      contents: write
   
    jobs:
      build:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        steps:
          - name: checkout
            uses: actions/checkout@v4
   
          - name: prep typst
            uses: typst-community/setup-typst@v3
          - run: typst compile m1.typ
   
          - name: release
            uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
            if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
            with:
              files: |
                m1.pdf
   

9. Compile documents en-masse (2026):

   Taking a leaf from my work some years ago, and knowing Typst supports multi-core processing, I was able to write a simple fish script to take advantage of this and compile documents in a flash:

    #!/usr/bin/env fish
    for FILE in *-FABM-076.typ *-STRU-{154,158,199,214,217,581,597}.typ
        typst c $FILE &
    end
   

   The ampersand in line 3 does the heavy-lifting as it relegates each job to a background task, and is ready for the next file, enabling parallel execution. It’s likely that if thousands of documents are compiled like this, then it may crash, esp. if you’re on a humble set of computing resources, but if in tens, then it’s no sweat.