Quarto Hints

Think of a Quarto document (.qmd) as a command center. You write commands and prose, then render the file, and an HTML (or PDF, Word, etc.) output file is created according to your commands.¹

Rendering a Quarto Document

In Positron, click the Render button at the top of the editor (or use Cmd+Shift+K / Ctrl+Shift+K). From the terminal:

quarto render my-file.qmd

YAML Front Matter

Every .qmd starts with a YAML header between --- markers:

---
title: "My Document"
author: "Your Name"
format:
  html:
    toc: true
    code-fold: true
    embed-resources: true
---

Common format options for HTML output:

Option	Purpose
`toc: true`	Show table of contents
`toc-depth: 3`	How many heading levels in the TOC
`number-sections: true`	Auto-number sections
`code-fold: true`	Collapse code chunks by default
`embed-resources: true`	Inline plots/images so the `.html` is self-contained — required for Canvas submissions
`theme: flatly`	Bootstrap theme

Submitting to Canvas

Always include embed-resources: true in your YAML. Without it, Quarto saves your plots into a sibling _files/ folder and the rendered .html references them externally. If you upload just the .html to Canvas, the plots will not appear — your reader sees broken images. With embed-resources: true, every chart, image, and asset is base64-inlined into the single .html file, making it self-contained.

Creating Links

Use [Link text](url):

[R Commands](RCommands.qmd) → R Commands
[R Colors](https://r-charts.com/colors/) → R Colors

Creating Headers

Use # for headings — one # per heading level:

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4

Emphasizing Words

*italic* → italic
**bold** → bold
`code` → code

Bullet Points

Simple Lists

- First item
- Second item
- Third item

Numbered Lists

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item

Nested Lists

1. What is $2+2$?
    a. **4**
    b. 8
2. What is $3 \times 5$?
    a. 14
    b. **15**

Math Equations

Use $x = 5$ inline to write $x = 5$. Use $$ ... $$ on their own lines for display math:

$$
z = \frac{\bar{x} - \mu}{\sigma / \sqrt{n}}
$$

Renders as:

\[ z = \frac{\bar{x} - \mu}{\sigma / \sqrt{n}} \]

Common LaTeX symbols:

Symbol	LaTeX
$\alpha$, $\beta$, $\sigma$, $\mu$, $\epsilon$	$\alpha$ , $\beta$ , $\sigma$ , $\mu$ , $\epsilon$
$\bar{x}$	$\bar{x}$
$\hat{Y}$	$\hat{Y}$
$\neq$	$\neq$
$\leq$, $\geq$	$\leq$ , $\geq$
$\text{plain text}$	$\text{plain text}$

Code Chunks

R code runs inside fenced blocks:

```{r}
x <- 1:10
mean(x)
```

Useful chunk options (set with #| at the top of the chunk):

```{r}
#| echo: false        # hide the code
#| eval: false        # show code but don't run it
#| warning: false     # suppress warnings
#| fig-cap: "My plot" # add a caption
```

Tabsets

Quarto uses fenced divs instead of R Markdown’s .tabset:

::: {.panel-tabset}

## Tab A

Content for tab A

## Tab B

Content for tab B

:::

Callout Blocks

Highlight information with callouts:

::: {.callout-note}
This is a note.
:::

::: {.callout-warning}
This is a warning.
:::

Tables

Pipe tables work like this:

| Name  | Age | Gender |
|-------|-----|--------|
| Jill  | 8   | Female |
| Jack  | 9   | Male   |

Inserting Images

![Caption](path/to/image.png){width=300px}

More Information

Footnotes

Adapted from the original R Markdown Hints page for the Quarto-based M119 site.↩︎