What
Use SMC's TeX-style Malayalam hyphenation patterns in the Typst PDF generator so long Malayalam words break at correct syllable boundaries in printed dialogue / action, instead of arbitrary character splits.
Why this matters
Right now, when a long Malayalam word reaches the right margin in PDF output, Typst falls back to either no break (overflows the line) or a generic break at an arbitrary codepoint. Neither is correct for Malayalam — readers expect breaks at syllable boundaries (the same convention as Indic-typeset books, newspapers, and the Manorama/Mathrubhumi style guides).
Subtle but every Malayalam reader notices. Print-grade dialogue formatting is the difference between "this looks like a real shooting script" and "this looks like a Word doc."
Source
SMC ships hyphenation patterns at https://github.com/smc/hyphenation (TeX-pattern format, OFL/MIT-equivalent). They're already used by XeLaTeX / LuaTeX / upstream tex-hyphen.
Technical sketch
- Vendor the Malayalam patterns from
smc/hyphenation/ml.tex (or pull at build time via build.rs).
- Typst supports custom hyphenation via the
hyphenate: text property + lang: \"ml\" — set both on the body / dialogue / action containers in pdf.rs.
- Verify the patterns parse correctly through Typst's hyphenation pipeline; Typst reads Hyphenator-style patterns natively.
- Test cases: a few known long Malayalam words with established break points (e.g.
യുവാവായിരിക്കുന്നിടത്തോളം).
Priority
Highest priority of the v1.0+ Malayalam enhancement queue. Pure-quality fix, no speculative tooling, no UI design needed, ships invisibly to all existing users on next PDF export.
Out of scope
English hyphenation (Typst handles it natively).
What
Use SMC's TeX-style Malayalam hyphenation patterns in the Typst PDF generator so long Malayalam words break at correct syllable boundaries in printed dialogue / action, instead of arbitrary character splits.
Why this matters
Right now, when a long Malayalam word reaches the right margin in PDF output, Typst falls back to either no break (overflows the line) or a generic break at an arbitrary codepoint. Neither is correct for Malayalam — readers expect breaks at syllable boundaries (the same convention as Indic-typeset books, newspapers, and the Manorama/Mathrubhumi style guides).
Subtle but every Malayalam reader notices. Print-grade dialogue formatting is the difference between "this looks like a real shooting script" and "this looks like a Word doc."
Source
SMC ships hyphenation patterns at https://github.com/smc/hyphenation (TeX-pattern format, OFL/MIT-equivalent). They're already used by XeLaTeX / LuaTeX / upstream tex-hyphen.
Technical sketch
smc/hyphenation/ml.tex(or pull at build time viabuild.rs).hyphenate:text property +lang: \"ml\"— set both on the body / dialogue / action containers inpdf.rs.യുവാവായിരിക്കുന്നിടത്തോളം).Priority
Highest priority of the v1.0+ Malayalam enhancement queue. Pure-quality fix, no speculative tooling, no UI design needed, ships invisibly to all existing users on next PDF export.
Out of scope
English hyphenation (Typst handles it natively).