Retex
A Rust rewrite of LuaLaTeX: typesets two to three times faster, exports SVG, ODT, and PDF/X — and the whole engine was generated by a large language model.
Retex is a clean-room rewrite of LuaLaTeX, written in Rust. It aims to match LuaLaTeX feature for feature, but runs two to three times faster. Author Séverin Lemaignan posted it to Hacker News on November 7, 2026, and said it plainly in the post: the entire engine was generated by a large language model, so it has no author of its own. You can use it as a drop-in replacement for LuaLaTeX (compatibility mode), or as a more modern typesetting engine: error messages are easier to read, it supports SVG and ODT/ODP export, the PDF/X1 and PDF/X4 print standards, automatic downloading of missing packages, and Python bindings. The repo is very active: created on October 17, 2026, it already had 1,365 commits, 44 tags, and 12 releases by November 7. The latest release, 1.8.0, came out on November 6, and the user manual — with examples and tests — runs to over 300 pages. It is open source under CC0. Two things to keep in mind: the author credits all of it to Knuth and the TeX/LaTeX/LuaTeX volunteers — at its core, this engine is a machine translation of their work. And there is no online demo to try: if you want to use it, you will need to pull the code and build it yourself, or read the manual first.
@nico.g