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make(type="typst") escapes \ [ ] # * < > _, but not the rest of Typst's markup-mode syntax (https://typst.app/docs/reference/syntax/). Ordinary text in a label, cell, caption or note therefore either stops the document from compiling or is rendered as markup:

import pandas as pd
import maketables as mt

df = pd.DataFrame({"Income ($)": ["1"]}, index=["contact a@b.org"])
src = mt.MTable(df, notes="Costs in US$ 2020").make(type="typst")
open("t.typ", "w").write(src)
# $ typst compile t.typ
# error: unclosed delimiter

Observed with typst 0.13 for each text slot (cell, row label, column header, spanner, row-group name, notes, caption):

text	result on main
Costs in US$ 2020	compile error: unclosed delimiter (math)
contact a@b	compile error: label <b> does not exist (reference)
code `x	compile error: unclosed delimiter (raw text)
a // b	compile error: the comment swallows the cell's closing ]
a /* b	compile error in headers, captions and row-group names
Model*, *bold	compile error in headers, captions and row-group names (unclosed strong)
a \* b	compile error everywhere: the \ is doubled first, leaving a bare *
~0.5	renders as 0.5 (~ is a non-breaking space)
- sub, + ctrl, = base, / term: x	render as a bullet, 1. ctrl, a heading, a term list

Expected: the text prints as typed. (The docs' own Annual Salary ($) label in UsingLabels.ipynb hits the first case if rendered to Typst.)

Fix

All in _escape_typst, through which every text slot already passes:

• escape $, `, @ and ~ like #, <, > and _;
• escape a / that starts // or /*, except after :, so URLs (https://...) are still lexed as links;
• escape a leading =, -, + or / followed by a space, at the start of each line. A bare - or -0.12 is left alone, so Typst still typesets negative numbers with a minus sign;
• where asterisks are passed through for *bold* (headers, spanners, row-group names, caption), escape them only when their count is odd, i.e. when one would be left unclosed;
• protect a user-written \* before backslashes are doubled, so it renders as *, which is what the old comment said the lookbehind was for.

Left as is: smart quotes, --/--- dashes and .... Typst typesets these like LaTeX does, and they compile.

Tests

• test_typst_markup_characters_render_literally: 12 texts × 7 slots. Each one compiles with the typst CLI and checks that the text appears unchanged in the PDF text (pdfplumber).
• test_typst_escaped_asterisk_renders_as_asterisk (cell, header).
• test_typst_url_in_notes_stays_a_link: a guard that a URL is left unescaped and still prints.

The tests use the existing needs_typst skip marker and compile_typst helper in tests/api/test_output_formats.py. 77 of the 87 new cases fail on main and all 87 pass with the fix. The other 10 already pass on main and guard against regressions: a /* b, Model* and *bold in slots where asterisks were already escaped, plus the URL case. Full suite: 585 passed, and all 135 snapshots are unchanged. pre-commit and ty are clean.

Open question

This is a proposal that typst text is always literal, which is how \, _, # and < were already handled. The alternative is to let users write Typst math such as $beta$ in labels, as tex output lets them write $\beta$. That would need an opt-out, because $ in plain text (currency) is common and currently breaks compilation.

Not changed here: tab_label is inserted as a raw <label>, and typst_style values are inserted verbatim.

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