winget install --id=Aburousan.Hilbert -e Hilbert is a local, offline desktop editor for the Typst typesetting language, built for maths and physics writing. It compiles and previews as you type, and ships with tools for equations, figures, plots, matrices, tables, and data import, along with code intelligence from tinymist. It installs per user and needs no administrator rights.
> Unofficial. Hilbert is an independent, community-built application. It is not > the Typst web app, IDE, or compiler, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by > the Typst team. "Typst" is a trademark of its respective owners; this project > merely builds on top of the open-source Typst compiler.
It started as "an offline, Overleaf-feeling place to write physics and maths," and grew into a full scientific-writing IDE: a real code editor on the left, a live PDF on the right. Equations, matrices, plots, diagrams, theorems, citations, and running code are a click away instead of something you memorise. It runs entirely on your machine, works offline, and can execute your Python, Julia, or Wolfram snippets and drop the result straight into the document.
Download · Website · What changed · Handbook (PDF) · Every feature · Collaboration · Configuration and security
Hilbert updates itself. Install it once and every future version arrives on its own,
asking before it installs. On Linux the AppImage auto-updates; the .deb gets its
updates from the apt repository below.
The PDF re-renders as you type. The editor is Monaco, the same one VS Code runs on, with Typst hover-docs and autocomplete. It opens and is usable in well under a second.
Most of the syntax you'd otherwise have to memorise is a click away: equations, matrices, tables, figures, theorem boxes, citations by DOI or arXiv, 2D and 3D plots, commutative and Feynman diagrams. Each drops in as clean, editable Typst that stays yours. Press ⌘K and you can search every one of them by name.
It will also do the actual maths. Run a Python, Julia, or Wolfram snippet and get the result back as a typeset equation, or highlight an expression and simplify, solve, or integrate it where it sits. Run Notebook goes further and executes every code block in the document as one session, so variables carry from cell to cell and the output is written back under each block.
Plot Studio is one tool for every plot: 2D functions, 2D data, 3D surfaces, plus a
one-click launch into the interactive 3D studio and the Python/matplotlib runner. It
emits cetz and cetz-plot.
Underneath it behaves like a real workspace. Open any folder the way you would in VS
Code, split a document across #included chapters, drag files around the tree, search
the whole project at once.
It is also small. The backend idles at 12 MB and installs in 37 MB, a fraction of what a comparable Electron editor costs, and a thousand-file project only takes it to 18 MB (benchmarks). It works offline, updates itself, and keeps crashes contained: a broken tool shows an error rather than blanking the editor. On Windows it never flashes a console window at you.
> Everything happens on your computer. A small local server drives the Typst compiler > and (optional) code execution. Nothing leaves the machine unless you deliberately > turn on Google Drive or WebDAV sync.
docs/FEATURES.md is the full list — visual builders for matrices, Feynman diagrams, commutative diagrams and flowcharts, slide decks, the reference and citation managers, templates, every export format, live collaboration and the hosted browser workspace.
Hilbert drives external tools rather than reimplementing them, so a couple of things
must be on your PATH:
brew install typst, winget install Typst.Typst,
cargo install typst-cli, or a release binary. Verify with typst --version.brew install tinymist, winget install --exact --id Myriad-Dreamin.Tinymist,
or cargo install tinymist. Without it the editor still compiles and previews
normally; language-server features stay quiet. The path, version and running state
are shown under App Settings → General.numpy, matplotlib, sympy), Julia
(Latexify for equation mode), and WolframScript.Prebuilt installers are on the Releases page.
| Platform | Download |
|---|---|
| Windows | winget install Aburousan.Hilbert, or .exe / .msi |
| macOS, Apple Silicon | …-macOS-arm64.dmg |
| macOS, Intel | …-macOS-x64.dmg |
| Linux | .AppImage (auto-updates) / .deb / .rpm |
On a Mac, pick Apple Silicon for M-series chips and Intel for older Macs (About This Mac tells you which).
> macOS, first launch. The app isn't notarised (there's no paid Apple developer
> account), so macOS quarantines it, and renaming or moving the .app can break its
> ad-hoc signature. If it won't open, or says it's "damaged", run these two commands
> once:
> bash > xattr -cr "/Applications/Hilbert.app" > codesign --force --deep --sign - "/Applications/Hilbert.app" >
> Run these as two separate commands, one per line. If you paste them joined onto
> a single line, the shell reads --force as an option to xattr and reports it as
> unrecognised. (Adjust the path if the app is elsewhere.) This is a one-time step.
macOS, Homebrew. brew install --cask aburousan/hilbert/hilbert, then
brew upgrade --cask hilbert later. Gatekeeper may still refuse the first launch;
either add --no-quarantine to the install, or follow the note above.
Windows, winget. Hilbert is in the Microsoft package repository, so you can install it and everything it needs without visiting a download page:
winget install --exact --id Aburousan.Hilbert
winget install --exact --id Typst.Typst
winget install --exact --id Myriad-Dreamin.Tinymist
That installs per user and asks for no administrator rights. winget upgrade Aburousan.Hilbert picks up a new release if the app hasn't already updated itself.
Or download the .exe (or .msi) from Releases and run it — same application.
Hilbert also looks where the Windows package managers actually put things — winget's
Links and Packages folders, scoop's shims, chocolatey's bin — so a Typst or
tinymist installed after the app was last started is still found.
Linux (Debian / Ubuntu). Install from the apt repository so apt upgrade keeps it
current:
curl -fsSL https://aburousan.github.io/hilbert-apt/hilbert-archive-keyring.asc \
| sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hilbert-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hilbert-archive-keyring.gpg] https://aburousan.github.io/hilbert-apt stable main" \
| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hilbert.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install hilbert
Everything lives in this one repository: the React/Monaco frontend at the root and
the Rust backend under src-tauri/. You need Node.js 18+ and a stable
Rust toolchain; the first run compiles the backend.
git clone https://github.com/aburousan/hilbert-editor.git
cd hilbert-editor
bash scripts/setup.sh # installs Typst + Python deps and runs npm install (macOS/Linux)
npm run dev # Vite UI on http://localhost:5173, backend on http://127.0.0.1:3001
npm run dev serves the UI with Vite (hot reload) and starts the Rust backend in
headless mode on port 3001. For the real desktop app, npm run desktop builds the
frontend and opens the native window — that's also what a release build ships. On
Windows: winget install Typst.Typst, then npm install ; npm run dev.
The repository also builds a container that runs Hilbert's hosted mode: the browser is the editor, the compiler and the project live in the container, and the folder you mount is the project.
docker build -t hilbert-editor:latest .
docker run -d --name hilbert-editor \
-p 127.0.0.1:8080:3001 \
-e HILBERT_SERVER_TOKEN="a-random-secret-of-at-least-32-characters" \
-v "$(pwd)/hilbert-workspace:/app/data" \
hilbert-editor:latest
Open http://localhost:8080 and sign in with that token.
Leave HILBERT_SERVER_TOKEN out and the container prints a fresh one to
docker logs hilbert-editor at every start. The mounted folder must be writable by
uid 1000; if yours is not, add --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)". Code cells are confined
by the container and nothing else — bubblewrap cannot work inside an ordinary
container, so the image sets HILBERT_SANDBOX=off and relies on the container
boundary; -e ALLOW_CODE_EXECUTION=0 turns code cells off entirely. Before putting
the port on a network, read the hosted-workspace section of
docs/COLLABORATION.md.
= Intro ), then type @ and pick it..app. Fix it with the two commands in
Get it, run one per line.PATH.
Confirm typst --version works.PATH it searched.typst watch emitted.@preview/…. A package compatibility
problem, not the editor: some Typst Universe templates pull in helper packages
written for an older Typst. Your own document is fine.npm run dev only prints the concurrently line and stops. Run a full
npm install (not --production).Before filing a bug, run Help → Copy Diagnostics. It puts the activity log on the
clipboard together with the Typst and tinymist it found and the PATH it searched,
and the bug report form has a box waiting for it. On Windows especially, a windowed
app has no console to print to, so without that text a report can only describe the
symptom.
I built Hilbert for my own writing, and at this point it does everything I personally need. So there's no roadmap of features I'm racing to add. From here it's bug fixes, whatever users ask for, and the occasional update when something genuinely useful comes along.
That means the fastest way to change what happens next is to ask. If something is broken, missing, or annoying, open an Issue or a Discussion. Feature requests from people actually writing papers are what I'll act on first.
MIT; see LICENSE. Built and maintained by
Kazi Abu Rousan. Bundled third-party software:
quiver (MIT, © varkor) with
KaTeX (MIT) under public/quiver/.