Writing dynamic and reproducible documents

An introduction to Quarto

Julien Martin

BIO 8940

2026-01-19

Credit: Ignasi Bartomeus, PhD

How can you reproduce results?

What do we need to make research reproducible?

Something to integrate text, figures and code
- R, Python, etc
Something that can be continuously edited and updated
- Living or dynamic document
Something that can be easily used in versioning tools
- Git

Quarto ?

multi-language, next generation version of R Markdown
include many new new features and capabilities
Like R Markdown, Quarto uses knitr to execute R code, and is therefore able to render most existing Rmd files without modification.

R Markdown workflow

Quarto workflow

Structure of a qmd document

qmd document

Markdown

What is Markdown?

A way to write stuff
Mostly plain words, with some formating

Websites that use Markdown

GitHub https://github.com/
StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/
HackMD https://hackmd.io
Many more

Headers

Use # to create headers
Multiple #’s create lower level headers

Text

Text is rendered as plain text

Lists

Use asterisks to make bullet points
Use numbers to make numbered lists
Use 4 spaces or 1 tab for indentation

Hyperlinks

To add a hyperlink, put your text between brackets
Then place the URL between parentheses

Images

Use a link preceded by an ! to insert an image
The link text should be
- a URL if the image is hosted online
- a file path if the image is saved on your computer

Equations

Write equations with Latex syntax

Equation blocks

Tables

| header A | header B  | header C |
|:---------:|:--------:|---------:|
| left      | center   | right    |

Table: This is a title

This is a title
header A	header B	header C
left	center	right

A bit of a hassle…
Use a generator of Tables for Markdown
Wait for next section to learn how to generate tables from R

Quarto Reference Guide

https://rstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/rmarkdown-reference.pdf

Knitr Code chunks

Embed code

Insert chunk of R code
Code will run and include results.

Inline code

Place code in a sentence with
Code will be replaced with results

Chunk options

Rmd (R markdown) and qmd (quarto) differ:

Rmd: chunk options on one line between the {} after the r
qmd: either as Rmd or within the chunk with yaml style notation

Rmd

```{r name, echo=FALSE}
1+1
```

Can lead to really long lines

qmd

```{r}
#| label: name
#| echo: false
1+1
```

takes more vertical space but cleaner

echo

echo = FALSE or #| echo: false hides code.

eval

eval = FALSE or #| eval: false prevents code from being run
No results is displayed, only code

fig.height, fig.width

Specify dimension of plots (in inches) with fig.width and fig.height
Separate multiple arguments with commas.

message

message = FALSE or #| meassage: falseprevents messages from appearing in output

Default chunk options

Repeating chunk options can be painful
If you have echo = FALSE in every single chunk, how to set the default chunk option to echo = FALSE ?
Use knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE)
You may overwrite the default for each chunk
For chunk options, check out https://yihui.name/knitr/options/

Including tables

# cars is a built-in-to-R data set of cars and their stopping distances
cars %>%
  head(4) %>%
  knitr::kable(format = "html", caption = "A kable table")

A kable table
speed	dist
4	2
4	10
7	4
7	22

The kable package is often used with the kableExtra package
A number of other packages are available for making pretty tables, by far my favourite is gt using similar approach to table that ggplot has to figures

R Markdown Reference Guide

https://rstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/rmarkdown-reference.pdf

YAML: Yet Another Markup Language

YAML in brief

Contains the metadata of the document
Starts and ends by three dashes
Comes first in the document

Simplest example

Knit

Output formats

Appearance and style

Rmd

In HTML output, you can use theme or a custom .css style sheet
theme options (bootswatch.com) : “cerulean”, “journal”, “flatly”, “darkly”, “readable”, “spacelab”, “united”, “cosmo”, “lumen”, “paper”, “sandstone”, “simplex”, “yeti”
You may also use LaTeX templates with R Markdown, and write reproducible scientific paper

qmd

this is were Quarto is leaps beyong R markdown
excellent doc on the website

Managing bibliography

Reference file

Put references in a plain text file with the extension .bib, in BibTex format (my advice: use Zotero and betterbibtex extension for dynamic file)

*@article{Shea2014,
  author =        {Shea, Nicholas and Boldt, Annika},
  journal =       {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
  pages =         {186--193},
  title =         {{Supra-personal cognitive control}},
  volume =        {18},
  year =          {2014},
  doi =           {10.1016/j.tics.2014.01.006},
}

Reference this file in your YAML header and add a csl style for formatting (browse through and download styles at zotero.org/styles)

---
title: "Citation test"
output: html_document
bibliography: example.bib
csl: my-style.csl 
---

Citations

In your text, citations go inside brackets and separated by semicolons

This…

Blah blah [@Shea2014; @xie2015].

turns into this…

Blah blah (Shea and Boldt 2014, Xie 2015).

Citations

In your text, citations go inside brackets and separated by semicolons

This…

Blah blah @Shea2014; @xie2015.

@Shea2014 says blah.

Blah blah [see @Shea2014, pp. 33-35; also @xie2015, ch. 1].

turns into this…

Blah blah (Shea and Boldt 2014, Xie 2015).

Shea and Boldt (2014) says blah.

Blah blah (see Shea and Boldt 2014 pp. 33–35, also Xie 2015, ch. 1).

Citations

For an easy way to insert citations, try the citr RStudio add-in.

If you are using Zotero, then RStudio can link directly for both Rmd and qmd files (same for VScode)

Notebook vs console in Rstudio

Notebook and console

In Rstudio, Rmarkdown file = notebook

Meaning that R output:

are embedded in doc
not available in R envir and console

If you don’t like the notebook and want the console, add to YAML header

editor_options:
  chunk_output_type: console

Notebook

Console

R Markdown Reference Guide

https://rstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/rmarkdown-reference.pdf

What else can we do with R Markdown/ Quarto?

Let’s have a tour

To go further

Most of what works for R markdown works for Quarto

R Markdown cookbook

R Markdown Guide

Quarto website

Happy coding

Shea, N., and A. Boldt. 2014. Supra-personal cognitive control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 18:186–193.

Xie, Y. 2015. Dynamic documents with R and knitr. 2nd edition. Chapman; Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, Florida.