Typst: `margin.left` doesn't control the left page margin for article layouts

[cwickham]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

In format: typst, margin.left and margin.right are mapped asymmetrically:

quarto-cli/src/resources/filters/layout/meta.lua

Lines 462 to 477 in e768e5c

	-- Apply user overrides from margin options
	-- margin.left -> inner.sep (separation between body and inner margin column)
	-- margin.right -> outer.far (distance from outer page edge)
	if marginOptions then
	if marginOptions.left then
	local parsed = parseCssLength(marginOptions.left)
	if parsed then
	innerSep = parsed
	marginLeftSpecified = true
	end
	end
	if marginOptions.right then
	local parsed = parseCssLength(marginOptions.right)
	if parsed then outerFar = parsed end
	end
	end

• margin.right → outer.far (gap between the page edge and the outer column) ✅
• margin.left → inner.sep (gap between the inner column and the body) ❌

Because inner.far keeps a value derived purely from paper width, margin.left has no effect on the left page-edge margin. Setting margin.left equal to margin.right does not produce symmetric margins, and a full-width .column-page block (which extends out to far on each side) ends up visibly off-centre.

I think the fix is to map margin.left → inner.far

Steps to reproduce

---
title: "Untitled"
format:
  typst:
    margin:
      left: 2in
      right: 2in
---


::: {.column-page}
{{< lipsum 1 >}}
:::

Actual behavior

margin.left and margin.right are both 2in, so the .column-page block should have equal gaps on both sides. It doesn't:

Expected behavior

Symmetric 2" margins

Your environment

• IDE: Positron
• OS: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.5.0), Apple Silicon

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.9.38
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/charlottewickham/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.8.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      Deno version 2.4.5: OK
      Typst version 0.14.2: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.9.38
      Path: /Applications/Positron.app/Contents/Resources/app/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2026.04
      VeraPDF: 1.28.2
      Chromium: (not installed)
      Chrome Headless Shell: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /Users/charlottewickham/Library/TinyTeX/bin/universal-darwin
      Version: 2026

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
      Source: MacOS known location

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.6.0
      Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.6/Resources
      LibPaths:
        - /Users/charlottewickham/Documents/posit/quarto-tdg/renv/library/R-4.6/aarch64-apple-darwin23
        - /Users/charlottewickham/Library/Caches/org.R-project.R/R/renv/sandbox/R-4.6/aarch64-apple-darwin23/46003b10
      knitr: (None)
      rmarkdown: (None)

      The knitr package is not available in this R installation.
      Install with install.packages("knitr")
      The rmarkdown package is not available in this R installation.
      Install with install.packages("rmarkdown")

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.12.2
      Path: /Users/charlottewickham/.pyenv/versions/3.12.2/bin/python3
      Jupyter: 5.9.1
      Kernels: python3

[✓] Checking Jupyter engine render....OK

[✓] Checking Julia installation...

[mcanouil]

This looks like an issue with "marginalia" which is the Typst package used when using layouts components such as .column-page.

[cwickham]

Yes, inner.far and inner.sep refer to marginalia's column definitions. We map margin.left to the wrong one.

[cwickham]

And to be clear, this isn't a problem if the document doesn't put content outside of column-body, i.e. this is fine:

---
title: "Untitled"
format:
  typst:
    margin:
      left: 2in
      right: 2in
---

::: {.column-body}
{{< lipsum 1 >}}
:::