Quarto: The Practical Guide
Welcome
Quarto is an open-source scientific and technical publishing system that produces elegantly formatted output as documents, web pages, presentations, and more. This book will teach you how to use Quarto effectively, taking you from zero to competent with enough depth to work independently.
This book is a work-in-progress. The content is still being developed and refined. If you find any mistakes or have suggestions for improvement, please open an issue or a pull request on the GitHub repository.
Who is this book for?
This book serves two audiences.
If you’re new to Quarto, the first part of the book provides a linear path through all the basics. We assume no prior knowledge of Quarto. You also don’t need any particular programming language experience, although if you do use R or Python, you’ll learn how to incorporate them into your Quarto documents. You’ll learn the essential components of Quarto documents—markdown, code, options, and publishing—in the order that makes sense. By the end of Part I, you’ll be able to create and share your own Quarto documents.
If you already use Quarto, you may have learned by solving problems as they arose. This book offers something different: conceptual foundations that help you use Quarto more productively, navigate the documentation more effectively, and ask better questions when you get stuck. Parts II and III are designed with you in mind—they go deeper into computation and Quarto’s core concepts.
You don’t need to be an R or Python user to benefit from this book. While Quarto excels at integrating code and output, it’s also a powerful approach to creating professional documents, presentations, and websites without writing code.
How is this different from quarto.org?
This book complements the official Quarto documentation at quarto.org, not replace it.
It differs in several key ways:
A curated path. This book presents material in a deliberate order, focusing on what we think matters most rather than covering everything Quarto can do.
Conceptual depth. We explain not just how to do things, but why Quarto works the way it does. Understanding these foundations helps you solve problems on your own.
Readable away from your computer. While we encourage you to try examples, you can learn concepts and understand how Quarto works even when you’re not actively coding.
The official Quarto website remains the definitive reference. We’ll point you there for specific details and advanced features. The official site also includes hands-on tutorials that are excellent for learning specific tasks.
How to read this book
Part I, Getting Started, is a linear introduction to Quarto. If you’re new, read it from start to finish. You’ll learn everything you need to create and share Quarto documents: writing content, adding code, setting options, and publishing.
Part II, Computation, is where Quarto’s core strength shines: integrating code into documents. Dive into the chapter for your language of choice—R or Python—to learn how Quarto integrates with your computational workflow. If you don’t plan to include code in your documents, you can skip this part.
Part III, Mastering Quarto, builds conceptual foundations. Each chapter is about mastering a core aspect of Quarto: Markdown, Projects, Options, Troubleshooting. These chapters give you the deeper understanding that helps you use Quarto more productively, navigate the documentation, and solve problems independently.
Part IV, Formats, is practical and goal-oriented. We cover the most useful formats for getting things done: HTML documents for the web, Typst documents for print, RevealJS presentations for talks, and website projects for sharing collections of documents. Read the chapters relevant to your work.