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The most opinionated Typst template for writing fiction. Did you ever wonder how people format books? Well, look no further.

TiefFiction serves primarily myself. I have a great many projects, but this is close to my daily workflow. I require uniform formatting between my various novels/stories and thus, I decided to make a typst template.

This template strongly orients itself on LiX, a templating system by NicklasVraa. Specifically, TiefFiction mimics and improves upon the styling of the novel class.

TiefFiction, however, tries to be annoying about it, and opinionates everything.

Getting started

It’s simple. Import and use:

#import "@preview/tieffiction:0.1.0": book

#show: book.with(
  title: "Your Title",
  author: ("Author 1", "Author 2"),
  publisher: "Your Publisher",
  date: datetime(year: 2026, month: 2, day: 3),
  isbn: "000-0-00000-000-0",
  edition: 42,
  license: "cc-by-nc-sa",
)

Languages

TiefFiction is internationalized (is that a word?) and currently has versions for the following languages:

  • English US
  • English UK
  • Deutsch DE

As TiefFiction uses TiefLang (obviously), selecting a language can either be done by passing the language parameter to setup or book (see below), or using TiefLang directly. Look at TiefLang for more information.

Components

TiefFiction currently has 5 main components:

  1. The Title Page title-page
  2. The Copyright Block copyright-block
  3. The Table of Content (ToC) table-of-content
  4. The Blurb blurb-block

These components can be seperately inserted into your design, or automatically inserted using the book function. book is a simple starting point, with opinionated defaults. See examples/fiction for that.

For manually building your layout, use the setup function. You can then start and end sections of the book (preamble, before-main, main, after-main) and insert the components as you wish.

A TiefFiction book is split into four parts:

  • The preamble disables page counters and chapter counters.
  • The before-main starts page and chapter counters with letters.
  • The main displays the page and chapter counters normally.
  • The after-main disables everything again.

Use at your discretion.

Reference

setup

#show: setup.with(
  title: "Your Title", // Title used for metadata and title page
  author: ("Author 1", "Author 2"), // Author name or array of names
  publisher: "Your Publisher", // Publisher name(s)
  date: datetime(year: 2026, month: 2, day: 3), // datetime for publication (defaults to today)
  isbn: "000-0-00000-000-0", // ISBN string
  edition: 1, // Edition number or label
  blurb: "Back cover blurb.", // Blurb text stored in metadata
  dedication: "For someone.", // Dedication text stored in metadata
  license: "cc-by-nc-sa", // Creative Commons license id (e.g. "cc-by-nc-sa")
  paper: "a5", // Paper size when width/height not set
  margin: (x: 18mm, y: 20mm), // Page margin override
  width: none, // Page width override
  height: none, // Page height override
  language: languages.english-us, // TiefLang language key
)

book

#show: book.with(
  title: "Your Title", // Title used for metadata and title page
  author: ("Author 1", "Author 2"), // Author name or array of names
  publisher: "Your Publisher", // Publisher name(s)
  date: datetime(year: 2026, month: 2, day: 3), // datetime for publication (defaults to today)
  isbn: "000-0-00000-000-0", // ISBN string
  edition: 1, // Edition number or label
  blurb: "Back cover blurb.", // Blurb text stored in metadata
  dedication: "For someone.", // Dedication text stored in metadata
  license: "cc-by-nc-sa", // Creative Commons license id (e.g. "cc-by-nc-sa")
  paper: "a5", // Paper size when width/height not set
  margin: (x: 18mm, y: 20mm), // Page margin override
  width: none, // Page width override
  height: none, // Page height override
  language: languages.english-us, // TiefLang language key
  show-title-page: true, // Show the title page before front matter
  toc-settings: (style: "num-first", show-chapter-nums: false), // ToC style options
  copyright-block-settings: (settings: (text-size: 8.5pt)), // Copyright block options
)

start-preamble

#show: start-preamble

// Your preamble content here.

start-before-main

#show: start-before-main

// Your front matter here.

start-main

#show: start-main

// Your main matter here.

start-after-main

#show: start-after-main

// Your back matter here.

title-page

#title-page() // Uses metadata state for title/author

#copyright-block(
  holder: "Your Name", // Copyright holder (defaults to author)
  publisher: "Your Publisher", // Publisher name(s)
  year: 2026, // Year override
  date: datetime(year: 2026, month: 2, day: 3), // datetime used to derive year
  isbn: "000-0-00000-000-0", // ISBN string
  edition: 1, // Edition number or label
  dedication: "For someone.", // Dedication text shown on page
  license: "cc-by-nc-sa", // Creative Commons license id
  extra-lines: ("Printed in Someplace",), // Extra lines appended
  settings: (text-size: 8.5pt, line-spacing: 2pt), // Visual settings
)

table-of-content

#table-of-content(
  style: "underlined", // "num-first" | "underlined" | "dotted"
  show-chapter-nums: true, // Show chapter numbering column
)

blurb-block

#blurb-block(
  blurb: "Back cover blurb.", // Blurb text override
  title: "Your Title", // Title text override
)