Alta CV

A Typst CV template inspired by LianTze Lim's AltaCV (LaTeX). Data-driven via a JSON Resume-style dict; configurable theme, labels, and sections.

Features

• Data-driven from a JSON Resume dict — round-trips your resume.json, with a small set of practical extensions (focusAreas, numeric language rating, publication type grouping).
• Single-column ATS mode (columnRatio: 1) for parser-friendly output, alongside the default two-column layout — and inverted layouts (narrow side panel on either side).
• Six built-in accent palettes (teal, navy, crimson, forest, plum, charcoal) plus any rgb(...) value.
• Full label localisation via inline dict or TOML file — every display string the template emits is overridable, with a worked Irish translation under examples/labels-ga.toml.
• PDF metadata baked in — title, author, subject, keywords (auto-derived from skills), and document date populate from the same data dict.

Gallery

Every documented section rendered in a single multi-page CV. Source: examples/example_full.typ; rendered output: examples/example_full.pdf.

Page 1	Page 2

Installation

Scaffold a new project from the template:

typst init @preview/altacv

Or #import it from an existing .typ:

#import "@preview/altacv:1.1.0": alta // x-release-please-version

Fonts

The default font is Lato. The Typst web app has it preinstalled — local users need it on the system font path, or pass preferences.font to override.

• Web app: works out of the box.
• Local (Linux): sudo apt-get install fonts-lato (or your distro's equivalent).
• Local (macOS/Windows): download from Google Fonts and install.
• Other fonts: any installed system font works — #alta(cv, preferences: (font: "Inter")).

Run typst fonts to list what Typst can see on your system.

Quick start

#import "@preview/altacv:1.1.0": alta // x-release-please-version

#let cv = (
  basics: (
    name: "Jane Doe",
    label: "Senior Software Engineer",
    summary: [Backend engineer with eight years' experience…],
    email: "jane@example.com",
    phone: "+353 1 555 0100",
    location: "Dublin, Ireland",
    profiles: (
      (network: "LinkedIn", username: "janedoe",     url: "https://linkedin.com/in/janedoe"),
      (network: "GitHub",   username: "janedoe",     url: "https://github.com/janedoe"),
      (network: "Website",  username: "janedoe.dev", url: "https://janedoe.dev"),
    ),
  ),
  work: (
    (
      name: "Acme Corp",
      url: "https://acme.example.com", // optional — wraps the company name in a link
      position: "Senior Software Engineer",
      location: "Dublin, Ireland",
      startDate: "Jan 2022",
      // omit endDate → renders as "Present"
      highlights: ([Led the migration…], [Designed the platform…]),
    ),
  ),
  skills: (
    (name: "Languages", keywords: ("Scala", "Python")),
    (name: "Infra",     keywords: ("Kafka", "AWS", "Kubernetes")),
  ),
  languages: (
    (language: "English", fluency: "Native"),
    (language: "Irish",   fluency: "Professional Working"),
  ),
  // … education, certificates, publications
)

#alta(cv)

template/cv.typ is the starter typst init copies into a user's project — also the canonical demo that produces examples/cv.png and the Universe thumbnail.png. examples/example_full.typ is the multi-page demo that exercises every section and input form (see Gallery for the rendered output). Edge cases (publication grouping, fractional language ratings, custom preferences) are exercised by fixtures under tests/.

Data schema

The cv dict follows JSON Resume with three practical extensions:

• focusAreas: top-level array of prose items, rendered as a bulleted "Areas of Focus" section. An altacv addition, distinct from JSON Resume's interests (structured {name, keywords} — also supported).
• languages[].rating: numeric 0–preferences.maxRating (default 5). JSON Resume uses a fluency string; supplying rating enables half-dot precision and wins over fluency if both are present. Fractions must be in 0.5 increments (anything else panics — the renderer only expresses full or half dots).
• publications[].type: optional grouping key (e.g. "Articles", "Books", "Talks"). Entries sharing a type cluster under a subheading rendered verbatim from the string; entries without type fall under labels.articles. Localise via labels.articles or by supplying already-translated type values.

An empty or missing endDate renders as Present (localisable via labels.present).

ISO 8601 date strings ("2024", "2024-06", "2024-06-15" — the JSON Resume canonical shape) are formatted according to preferences.dateFormat (default "long": e.g. "Jun 2024"). Strings that don't parse as ISO (e.g. "Jan 2022", "May 2016 – Jul 2017") pass through verbatim, so pre-formatted data keeps rendering identically.

Top-level keys recognised: basics, focusAreas, work, volunteer, skills, languages, education, certificates, awards, projects, publications, interests, meta (PDF metadata only — see PDF metadata). Sections with empty input are skipped — no orphan headings.

basics.url (JSON Resume's "personal homepage" field) renders in the contact bar with the generic link icon, alongside email, phone, location, and profiles. It's distinct from a basics.profiles entry with network: "Website" (a profile on a third-party site); supply both if you want both rendered.

JSON Resume fields accepted but not yet rendered by this template:

• top-level: references
• volunteer[].summary, volunteer[].url
• projects[].entity, projects[].type, projects[].roles
• meta.canonical, meta.version

These are silently ignored, so a verbatim resume.json round-trips without panicking. Open or upvote an issue if you need one rendered.

basics.location accepts a plain string or JSON Resume's structured dict {address, postalCode, city, countryCode, region}. A string flows verbatim into the contact bar and maps deep link. A dict is collapsed by joining city, region, countryCode with ", ", skipping missing fields (so (city: "Dublin", region: "Leinster", countryCode: "IE") → Dublin, Leinster, IE; (city: "Tokyo") → Tokyo). address and postalCode are accepted for resume.json round-tripping but not rendered — a CV header isn't a mailing label. The joined string also drives the maps link, so display and link stay in sync. Unknown keys panic.

Portrait (basics.image)

Setting basics.image adds a circular portrait to the header. Move it with preferences.imagePosition ("left" / "right" for the two-column header, or "center" to stack it above/below the text block via preferences.imageStackOrder). Size via preferences.imageSize (default 6em); the image is fit with cover and clipped to a circle, so rectangular sources crop centred rather than distort. Two ways to supply the source:

// Recommended: load the bytes in your own typ file — path resolution
// happens at your call site, so relative paths "just work".
basics: (
  image: read("avatar.png", encoding: none),
  ...
)

// Alternative: a root-relative path (leading "/", anchored to the
// `--root` dir passed to `typst compile`). Paths without a leading
// "/" resolve relative to an internal package file and are not portable.
basics: (
  image: "/avatar.png",
  ...
)

JSON Resume's spec calls for a URL here, but Typst does not fetch remote URLs at compile time — vendor the asset locally.

Each per-section entry below follows JSON Resume's schema. Tables show the practical subset rendered. Where dates appear, startDate / endDate follow the same conventions (omit endDate → "Present"); summary accepts a string or [...] content for markup like emphasis.

Work

Field	Type	Effect
position	string	Job title. Entry heading.
name	string	Company / employer, accent colour beneath the title; wrapped in a link when url is supplied.
url	string	Wraps name in a link (visual treatment unchanged — bold accent, no italic / underline).
location	string	Rendered alongside the date range via the location-icon row.
startDate / endDate	string	Date range.
summary	string or content	Italic preamble between the date row and the highlights list.
description	string or content	Alternative spelling used by some exporters — rendered identically to summary, but summary wins when both are supplied.
highlights	array of content	Bulleted list of accomplishments.

Awards

url is an altacv extension on top of JSON Resume.

Field	Type	Effect
title	string	Award name. Entry heading; linked to url when supplied. Missing / empty title → entry silently skipped.
awarder	string	Granting organisation, accent colour beneath the title.
date	string	Single date (not a range). Calendar-icon row.
url	string	Wraps the title in an accent-coloured link — for a paper, conference page, or write-up.
summary	string or content	Paragraph below the date.

Projects

Field	Type	Effect
name	string	Project title. Heading; linked to url when supplied. Missing / empty name → entry silently skipped.
description	string	Italic subtitle under the title, body colour.
url	string	Wraps the title in an accent-coloured link.
startDate / endDate	string	Date range.
highlights	array of content	Bulleted list of accomplishments.
keywords	array of strings	Row of pill tags below the highlights.

Volunteer

Same shape as work[], but with organization in place of name.

Field	Type	Effect
position	string	Role title. Entry heading.
organization	string	Granting organisation, accent colour beneath the position.
location	string	Rendered next to the date range.
startDate / endDate	string	Date range.
highlights	array of content	Bulleted list of accomplishments.

By default volunteer renders in the left column directly below work, so it reads as a continuation of the experience block. Move it via preferences.leftColumnSections / preferences.rightColumnSections.

Education

Field	Type	Effect
institution	string	School name. Accent-bold beneath the qualification title; wrapped in a link to url when supplied.
url	string	Wraps the institution name in an accent-bold link (styling preserved, just clickable).
studyType	string	Qualification (e.g. "M.Sc. in Computer Science"). Entry heading. Falls back to area if absent.
area	string	Field of study. Used as the heading only when studyType is missing.
startDate / endDate	string	Date range.
score	string	Grade / classification, plain line below the date range.
courses	array of strings	Row of pill tags below the score (same treatment as skills[].keywords and projects[].keywords).

Publications

type is an altacv extension on top of JSON Resume.

Field	Type	Effect
name	string	Publication title. Bullet body; linked to url when supplied, italicised when not.
publisher	string	Subtitle below the title, body colour at 0.85em.
releaseDate	string	Single date (not a range). Below the publisher in a lighter shade.
url	string	Wraps the title in an accent-coloured link.
summary	string or content	Paragraph below the date.
type	string	Optional grouping key (see Data schema for the cluster behaviour).

All fields are optional — omitted fields drop their line.

Certificates

Field	Type	Effect
name	string	Certificate name. Rendered as a pill tag; linked to url when supplied. Missing / empty name → entry silently skipped.
issuer	string	Granting organisation. When preferences.groupCertificates is true, certs from the same issuer cluster into a single pill row prefixed by a darker issuer-label pill; singletons pool into a trailing unlabelled group.
date	string	Single date. Small body-coloured text inline to the right of the pill, sharing the same baseline.
url	string	Wraps the pill in a link to the credential.

Interests

Same {name, keywords} shape as skills[], and rendered with the same pill-tag layout (name as a label-tag, each keywords entry as a regular tag). Use for personal interests / hobbies; reach for focusAreas instead when you want prose-style bullets.

Field	Type	Effect
name	string	Category label, leading "label" pill on the row.
keywords	array of strings	Items in the category. Entries with an empty keywords array are silently skipped.

interests: (
  (name: "Music", keywords: ("Trad", "Jazz")),
  (name: "Sport", keywords: ("Hurling", "Climbing")),
)

Profile networks

The network field of each basics.profiles entry is matched case-insensitively against a vendored icon set. Built-in networks: Bluesky, GitHub, GitLab, Link, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Medium, Stackoverflow, Twitter (alias: X), Website. Use Link as a generic fallback for any URL without a brand. Unknown networks panic with a list of the supported set. To add another, drop its SVG (with fill="#666666" baked in) into icons/ and register it in _network_icon_sources in internal/icons.typ.

PDF metadata

The rendered PDF carries metadata in its document properties — what your OS shows in "Get Info" / "Properties" and what indexing services read. Fields are populated from the data dict; each is only written when its source is non-empty.

PDF field	Source	Notes
Title	basics.name + " --- CV"	Always set.
Author	basics.name	Always set; canonical (ignores preferences.uppercaseName).
Subject (description)	basics.summary	Same content rendered in the document header.
Keywords	skills[].keywords	Flattened across every skill group, de-duplicated, insertion order preserved.
Date (CreationDate / ModDate)	meta.lastModified	ISO 8601 — YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ; only the calendar part is used. Falls back to compile time when absent or unparseable.

To also surface "last updated" in the rendered document, set preferences.lastModifiedFooter: true.

meta: (
  lastModified: "2026-06-12", // → PDF date + optional footer
  // canonical / version: accepted, currently unrendered
)

Configuration

alta() arguments

#alta(cv, labels: (:), preferences: (:))

cv is the data dict; labels and preferences are partial dicts that shallow-merge over the built-in defaults (unknown keys panic — catches typos).

Preferences

Every theme, font, layout, and behaviour knob lives in preferences. Override any subset.

Key	Default	Effect
font	"Lato"	Primary font family. Must be installed.
bodySize	10pt	Base text size. Sub-elements scale via em-multipliers.
paper	"a4"	Paper size string passed to Typst's set page(paper: ...). "a4", "us-letter", "a5", "us-legal", and the rest of Typst's named papers.
margin	(x: 0.9cm, y: 1.5cm)	Page margins. Anything set page(margin: ...) accepts.
accent	palettes.teal	Theme colour for headings, accent rules, tags, dots. Use a built-in preset — palettes.{teal,navy,crimson,forest,plum,charcoal} — or any rgb(...) value.
groupCertificates	true	When true, cluster 2+ certs from the same issuer under a darker issuer-label pill; singletons pool into a trailing unlabelled group. When false, render flat — each cert next to its own issuer label. Certs with no issuer render unlabelled either way.
imageSize	6em	Diameter of the circular portrait. Ignored when no basics.image.
imagePosition	"right"	Portrait position in the header — "left" / "right" (two-column header) or "center" (own centred row, stacked with the text block). Ignored when no basics.image.
imageStackOrder	"above"	When imagePosition is "center": "above" / "below" the name/label/contact block. Ignored otherwise.
headerTextAlign	"left"	Horizontal alignment of the header text (name, label, contact bar). One of "left", "right", "center". Applies whether or not basics.image is set.
uppercaseName	true	When true (matching AltaCV's visual ancestor), basics.name renders in uppercase. Set to false for scripts where uppercase is a different glyph set (Turkish dotless-i, etc.), scripts with no case, or when the loud look isn't wanted.
lastModifiedFooter	false	When true and meta.lastModified is set, renders a small right-aligned <labels.lastModified>: <meta.lastModified> line in the page footer (timestamp passed through verbatim). PDF metadata is enriched independently — see PDF metadata.
dateFormat	"long"	How ISO 8601 dates are rendered wherever the template surfaces a date (startDate, endDate, awards[].date, publications[].releaseDate, …). Non-ISO strings pass through verbatim regardless. Accepted: "long" ("Jun 2024" / "15 Jun 2024", month names from labels.months), "short" ("06/2024" / "15/06/2024"), "iso" (passthrough), a bracketed template in Typst's datetime.display() syntax (e.g. "[day padding:none] [month repr:short] [year]" → "15 Jun 2024"; tokens year/month/day with padding: and repr:long/repr:short/repr:numerical, where month repr:long/short localises via labels.months), or a closure parts => str receiving (year, month, day) (month / day are none for year-only / year-month inputs).
linkContactInfo	true	Whether contact-bar entries are wrapped in deep links (mailto:, tel:, the configured maps URL for location, the supplied URL for basics.url and each profile). Accepts a boolean (uniform across channels) or a partial dict keyed by "email", "phone", "location", "url", "profiles" (omitted channels stay linked). E.g. linkContactInfo: (phone: false) linkifies everything except the phone. Unknown channel keys panic.
mapsProvider	maps-providers.google	URL template for the basics.location deep link. {q} is replaced with the URL-encoded location at render time. Use a built-in — maps-providers.{google,apple,bing,duckduckgo,osm} — or any URL template string. Pass none to suppress the link (icon + plain text still render). Strings missing {q} panic; non-string / non-none values panic.
columnRatio	0.65	Left-column width as a fraction of the page, in (0, 1]. The right column gets the remainder minus a fixed gutter. Use 1 - r to invert the layout, or 1 for a single-column layout.
pageFooter	none	Optional page footer. none — no footer. "auto" — multi-page documents only, basics.name flush left and Page N / M flush right, 0.8em body colour. Any content value ([…], align(...), etc.) — rendered verbatim on every page. Anything else panics. When non-none, takes precedence over lastModifiedFooter; combine the "last updated" line yourself in a content footer if you want both.
leftColumnSections	("work", "volunteer", "projects", "publications")	Sections to render in the left column, in order. Defaults put long-form / bulleted sections on the wider left.
rightColumnSections	("focusAreas", "skills", "languages", "education", "certificates", "awards", "interests")	Sections to render in the right column, in order. Defaults put compact / horizontal sections (pill rows, dot ratings, short metadata) on the right.
maxRating	5	Number of dots on the language fluency scale. Positive integer. Default matches LinkedIn's 0–5 scale (and the built-in fluency string map); set to 6 for CEFR (A1–C2), 4 for ILR-style 0–4, etc. Fluency strings stay anchored to the 0–5 LinkedIn scale, so non-5 maxRating requires numeric languages[].rating values.

Both column arrays draw from the same section keys: "work", "volunteer", "focusAreas", "skills", "languages", "education", "certificates", "awards", "projects", "publications", "interests". Sections omitted from both are not rendered even if their data is present; sections listed in both render twice. Unknown keys panic. Renderers are width-agnostic — combined with columnRatio, this enables layouts like an inverted CV where the side-panel sections take the narrow left column.

Example — reorder the right-column sections + tweak theme + use US Letter:

#import "@preview/altacv:1.1.0": alta, maps-providers, palettes // x-release-please-version

#alta(cv, preferences: (
  paper: "us-letter",
  accent: palettes.navy,
  groupCertificates: false,
  imageSize: 7em,
  linkContactInfo: false,           // contact bar as plain text
  mapsProvider: maps-providers.osm, // OpenStreetMap for `basics.location`
  // Move education above skills; hide publications.
  rightColumnSections: ("focusAreas", "education", "skills", "languages", "certificates"),
))

Example — invert the template (side panel on the narrow left, experience on the wide right):

#alta(cv, preferences: (
  // columnRatio is the LEFT column's width; 0.35 = complement of the default 0.65.
  columnRatio: 0.35,
  leftColumnSections: ("focusAreas", "skills", "languages", "education", "certificates"),
  rightColumnSections: ("work", "publications"),
))

Example — opt out of links per channel (everything stays linked except phone):

#alta(cv, preferences: (
  linkContactInfo: (phone: false),
))

Single-column layout

Set columnRatio: 1 to collapse the grid to a single full-width column — useful for ATS parsers that struggle with multi-column PDFs. Sections from both leftColumnSections and rightColumnSections stream top-to-bottom in left-then-right order. With the defaults: work → volunteer → projects → publications → focusAreas → skills → languages → education → certificates → awards → interests.

#alta(cv, preferences: (columnRatio: 1))

Reorder by overriding either array; both are concatenated in order:

#alta(cv, preferences: (
  columnRatio: 1,
  leftColumnSections: ("work", "education"),
  rightColumnSections: ("skills", "languages", "certificates"),
))

Drop the portrait via basics.image: none for a fully text-only header.

Labels

All display strings the template emits. Override any subset via labels:; the rest fall back to English defaults. Unknown keys panic. Use for translation or local renaming.

Label keys match the JSON Resume section keys (work, certificates, …) — the data-field name and the heading-override key are the same. The default values still read "Experience" and "Certifications" — that's editorial.

Key	Default
work	"Experience"
volunteer	"Volunteer"
focusAreas	"Areas of Focus"
skills	"Skills"
languages	"Languages"
education	"Education"
certificates	"Certifications"
publications	"Publications"
awards	"Awards"
projects	"Projects"
interests	"Interests"
articles	"Articles"
present	"Present"
lastModified	"Last updated"
months	("Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec")
publicationIcons	(:)

labels.months is the twelve abbreviated month names (January–December). Consumed by the dateFormat: "long" formatter and the [month repr:long] / [month repr:short] template tokens. Override to localise; must keep length 12.

labels.publicationIcons maps publications[].type values to icon names. Built-in defaults (case-insensitive, singular and plural both accepted):

type value	Icon
article / articles / blog post / blog posts	newspaper
book / books	book
talk / talks / presentation / presentations	microphone
paper / papers / conference paper / conference papers	newspaper
anything else	file

The supplied dict layers over the defaults rather than replacing them — override only to add a custom type or remap a built-in.

Example — German, plus renaming "Skills" to "Core Technologies":

#alta(cv, labels: (
  work:         "Berufserfahrung",
  focusAreas:   "Schwerpunkte",
  skills:       "Core Technologies",
  languages:    "Sprachen",
  education:    "Ausbildung",
  certificates: "Zertifikate",
  publications: "Veröffentlichungen",
  present:      "Heute",
  months: ("Jan", "Feb", "Mär", "Apr", "Mai", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Okt", "Nov", "Dez"),
))

Translation workflow

The defaults live in internal/labels-en.toml — a plain resource file a translator can be handed without learning Typst syntax. For full translations, copy that file, translate the values, and load it at the call site with the built-in toml(...):

// Inline partial overrides — best for one-off renames or a few keys.
#alta(cv, labels: (work: "Berufserfahrung", skills: "Core Technologies"))

// File-based — best for full translations or strings owned by a translator.
#alta(cv, labels: toml("labels-ga.toml"))

toml(...) resolves the path relative to the calling .typ file, so the translation lives next to the CV source. The returned dict flows through the same labels: argument and shallow-merges over the English defaults — unknown keys still panic, partial files still work. See examples/labels-ga.toml and the demo CV in examples/example_ga.typ for a worked Irish translation.

Helpers

alta() uses these internally; importing them lets you compose a custom section (or preview a single helper in isolation):

Helper	Purpose
icon(name, size: auto, shift: auto, fill: auto)	Render a vendored SVG. name is any key from the built-in icon set (utility or network).
name(body)	Bold accent-coloured line — the company / institution row under a role.
term(period, location: none)	Two half-width boxes for a date range and optional location, each with a leading icon.
rating(label, value)	Label on the left, filled / half-filled / empty dots on the right. value is numeric 0–preferences.maxRating (default 5); fractions must be in 0.5 increments (2.3 panics). Drives the language fluency dots; works for any row on the configured scale. Shares a name with the languages[].rating data field — the function isn't auto-fed; pass the value explicitly.
tag(body, label: false, trailing: true)	Pill-style tag. label: true for a darker, bold "category" variant. trailing: false suppresses trailing horizontal space — use for the last tag in a row so it doesn't push the next line's leading edge inward.
divider()	Dashed grey rule used between entries within a section.
styled-link(content, dest: none)	Accent-coloured italic styling for entry titles (publications, awards, projects). Wraps in a link when dest is supplied.
palettes	Dict of curated accent presets — teal, navy, crimson, forest, plum, charcoal. Use as accent: palettes.navy.
maps-providers	Dict of map deep-link URL templates — google, apple, bing, duckduckgo, osm. Use as mapsProvider: maps-providers.osm.

#import "@preview/altacv:1.1.0": alta, tag, divider, palettes, maps-providers // x-release-please-version

The contact bar is rendered from basics.email, basics.phone, basics.location, basics.url, basics.profiles. Visual separators are stripped from the tel: dialable part. Suppress or swap deep links via preferences.linkContactInfo and preferences.mapsProvider.

Building the examples

typst compile --root . examples/example_full.typ examples/example_full.pdf

To regenerate the preview artifacts (the canonical cv render, the animated GIF that cycles through preference variations, the multi-page gallery PNGs, and the Universe package-card thumbnail):

make cv             # examples/cv.pdf + examples/cv.png from template/cv.typ
make example-full   # examples/example_full.pdf + examples/example_full-{1,2,…}.png
make thumbnail      # thumbnail.png (Universe package card, 250 PPI)
make preview-gif    # examples/preview.gif (requires ffmpeg)

The GIF is sourced from examples/preview-frames.typ — one page per variation, stitched by ffmpeg with palettegen / paletteuse for higher-quality colour quantisation. Add a frame by appending a preferences dict to the frames array in that file.

Credits

• LianTze Lim — AltaCV (LPPL). The visual ancestor: the two-column layout, accent palette, and section structure originate in LianTze's LaTeX class.
• George Honeywood — alta-typst (MIT, © 2023). Prior Typst implementation; the grid layout, pill tags, and half-fill skill dots originate there.

License

MIT. Copyright © 2023 George Honeywood, © 2026 Shane Murphy.