Relative font-paths not working, but absolute font-paths are working

[the-solipsist]

Description

I have an custom extension in which I use font-paths. If I use an absolute font-path, the fonts get picked up. If I use a relative font path, they don't.

title: lirneasia
author: Pranesh Prakash
version: 1.0.0
quarto-required: ">=1.8.0"
contributes:
  metadata:
    project:
      brand: brand.yml
  formats:
    typst:
      template-partials:
        - typst-template.typ
        - typst-show.typ
        - page.typ
      font-paths: 
        - assets/fonts # doesn't work
        - /_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts # doesn't work
        # - /home/sol/documents/tmp/_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts
        # the absolute path works.
      format-resources:
        - assets/logos

The CI fails in this repo. (If anyone has any other comments about how that repo is organized, or the Typst template I've written, or anything else, I'm very happy to receive feedback.)

I found this issue, but it doesn't seem to explain what's going on: #12695

The output of quarto render seems to be okay, but still the fonts don't get recognized.

...
metadata
  font-paths:
    - ../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts
    - /_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts
...

The error:

[typst]: Compiling d4dasia_country-report_sl.typ to d4dasia_country-report_sl.pdf...warning: unknown font family: montserrat
    ┌─ country/sl/d4dasia_country-report_sl.typ:612:30
    │
612 │ #show heading: set text(font: ("Montserrat",), weight: "bold", fill: rgb("#a51212"), )
    │                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

warning: unknown font family: aptos
    ┌─ country/sl/d4dasia_country-report_sl.typ:283:10
    │
283 │     font: font,
    │           ^^^^

warning: unknown font family: montserrat
    ┌─ country/sl/d4dasia_country-report_sl.typ:428:23
    │
428 │         set text(font: heading-family, weight: heading-weight, style: heading-style, fill: heading-color)
    │                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If I uncomment the absolute path, the fonts get recognized when I do quarto render:

...
metadata
  font-paths:
    - ../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts
    - /_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts
    - /home/sol/documents/tmp/_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts
...

[the-solipsist]

I should also add: I've already tried shifting the font-paths from _extension.yml to _quarto.yml, and it didn't help. In both, the absolute path worked and relative paths didn't.

> quarto check
Quarto 1.9.12
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /home/sol/.cache/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.6.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      NOTE: Deno version 2.4.5 does not strictly match 2.3.1 and strict checking is enabled. Please use 2.3.1.
      Typst version 0.13.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.9.12
      Path: /opt/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: (not installed)
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: Installation From Path
      Path: /usr/bin
      Version: undefined

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Chrome:  (not detected)

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.13.7
      Path: /usr/bin/python3
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking R installation...........(None)

      Unable to locate an installed version of R.
      Install R from https://cloud.r-project.org/

Interestingly, quarto finds assets/logos just fine. It's only assets/fonts that aren't found.

> tree -d _extensions
_extensions
└── lirneasia
    └── assets
        ├── fonts
        │   ├── aptos
        │   └── montserrat
        └── logos

[cderv]

When I do quarto render .\country\sl\d4dasia_country-report_sl.qmd in your project, I can see that paths are correctly resolved in the logged metadata

metadata
  font-paths:
    - ../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/montserrat
    - ../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/aptos

But I suspect the issue is from running this document from inside a nested folder from your root. With a repo in the project root, I bet you wouldn't have errors.

Using format-ressources would be an option to copy the font in your project, and then reference them from your extensions using /path/from/root.

But I think this is an issue we need to see if we can fix, or if this is a limitation of typst (like with LaTeX where resources needs to be placed outside of _extensions)

[cderv]

So as I thought the issue is that we pass the font-paths as command line flag to typst

quarto-cli/src/core/typst.ts

Lines 44 to 71 in 20d67b9

	export async function typstCompile(
	input: string,
	output: string,
	options: TypstCompileOptions = {},
	) {
	const quiet = options.quiet ?? false;
	const fontPaths = options.fontPaths;
	if (!quiet) {
	typstProgress(input, output);
	}
	const cmd = [
	typstBinaryPath(),
	"compile",
	];
	if (options.rootDir) {
	cmd.push("--root", options.rootDir);
	}
	cmd.push(
	input,
	...fontPathsArgs(fontPaths),
	output,
	);
	const result = await execProcess({ cmd: cmd[0], args: cmd.slice(1) });
	if (!quiet && result.success) {
	typstProgressDone();
	}
	return result;
	}

and quarto typst compile command is ran from the working directory where quarto is called. So project root when calling quarto render .\country\sl\d4dasia_country-report_sl.qmd

However, the font-paths are resolved by extensions mechanism as relative to the document

asArray(format.metadata?.[kFontPaths])
(2) ['../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/montserrat', '../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/aptos']

So the built flags to typst are

fontPathsArgs(fontPaths)
(6) ['--font-path', 'C:\\Users\\chris\\Documents\\DEV_R\\quarto-cli\\src\\resources\\formats\\typst\\fonts', '--font-path', '../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/montserrat', '--font-path', '../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/aptos']

And working dir is

Deno.cwd()
'C:\\Users\\chris\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\quarto\\lirneasia-d4dasia'

so indeed '../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/montserrat' is not found.

• /_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts # doesn't work

Using the / for project root don't work either because it seems the paths are not resolved as project root path
as I see

fontPathsArgs(fontPaths)
(6) ['--font-path', 'C:\\Users\\chris\\Documents\\DEV_R\\quarto-cli\\src\\resources\\formats\\typst\\fonts', '--font-path', '/_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/montserrat', '--font-path', '/_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/aptos']

Which is surprising as it should have been solved

• font-path for typst format in _quarto.yml beginning with / is not resolved relative to project root #12695

But maybe it is not done when this is in extensions 🤔

[the-solipsist]

I can see that paths are correctly resolved in the logged metadata

That's the case with me too. But after resolving the paths correctly, the fonts aren't used:
You can see them resolving correctly:
https://github.com/the-solipsist/lirneasia-d4dasia/actions/runs/19824041393/job/56792870541#step:6:21
But then:
https://github.com/the-solipsist/lirneasia-d4dasia/actions/runs/19824041393/job/56792870541#step:6:70

But I suspect the issue is from running this document from inside a nested folder from your root. With a repo in the project root, I bet you wouldn't have errors.

I'm not sure I understand what this means. What I'm running is quarto render on the root (i.e., the same folder where _quarto.yml is). (That is to say, I'm not running quarto render .\country\sl\d4dasia_country-report_sl.qmd.)

For now, I'll get around it by adding some commands in the Github actions to install the fonts. But so far, I haven't been able to get it work locally on my laptop without using the full path.

Also, is there a way to avoid copying the logo (in assets/logo within the extension) into every folder (using format-resources) with a file that needs that logo?

[cderv]

I'm not sure I understand what this means. What I'm running is quarto render on the root (i.e., the same folder where _quarto.yml is). (That is to say, I'm not running quarto render .\country\sl\d4dasia_country-report_sl.qmd.)

I mean that typst compile is called on .\country\sl\d4dasia_country-report_sl.typ with --font-path '../../_extensions/lirneasia/assets/fonts/aptos' so the path is not correctly relative to where typst is called

Also, is there a way to avoid copying the logo (in assets/logo within the extension) into every folder (using format-resources) with a file that needs that logo?

Maybe setting the logo with a path to the extension. Did you try ? Same issue as with fonts ?

[cderv]

I opened an issue to track resolution

• In custom typst format extension, relative or project relative font-paths not working #13745

[the-solipsist]

I add this to my brand.yml (which is within the extension, and is set in _extension.yml):

logo:
  images:
    background-first-page: 
      path: assets/logos/la-background-first.svg
    background-other-page: 
      path: assets/logos/la-background.svg
    full-logo: 
      path: assets/logos/la-logo-full.png

Then I used this in typst-template.typ:

...
  set page(
    background: context {
      if here().page() == 1 {
        // Front Cover Logic
        place(dx: -1.82cm, dy: -0.93cm)[
          #image(brand-logo-images.background-first-page.path, width: 14.01cm, height: 11.35cm)
        ]
        place(dx: 12.93cm, dy: 1.64cm)[
          #image("logos/la-logo-full.png", width: 6.74cm, height: 2.03cm)
        ]
      } else {
        // Continuation Page Logic
        place(dx: -2.22cm, dy: -3.26cm)[
          #image(brand-logo-images.background-other-page.path, width: 9.55cm, height: 7.73cm)
        ]
      }
    }
  )
...

But when I do quarto render, I get this: error: unknown variable: brand-logo-images.

I based this on https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/brand.html#typst-1

[grantmcdermott]

Just a comment to subscribe, since I'm facing a similar issue (as documented here: https://github.com/orgs/quarto-dev/discussions/12638#discussioncomment-14895562).

[mcanouil]

@grantmcdermott You don't need to comment to subscribe to a thread. You can add a reaction on any message or simply click on "subscribe" on the right (desktop view). (both these approaches avoid triggering notifications to all subscribers)

[grantmcdermott]

Thanks @mcanouil. I do know that (my comment should have been more precise). But I mostly want to flag that I'm facing the same problem.