A Quarto extension for inserting the current or last modified date and time in the format of your choosing.
quarto add gadenbuie/quarto-nowThis will install the now extension under the _extensions
subdirectory. If you’re using version control, you will want to check in
this directory.
The now extension provides two shortcodes: now and modified.
Both take an optional additional argument specifying the desired format
of the date and/or time.
Use the {{< now >}} shortcode anywhere you want to include the current
date and/or time in your document.
Document last rendered: {{< now >}}.Document last rendered: 2024-03-29 09:22:32.
Tip
“Last rendered” means the date and time when you called
quarto render or when the document was rendered by quarto preview.
Because now is a shortcode, its value is re-calculated every time
the document renders, even if you’ve frozen the document with
freeze: true. Frozen documents don’t re-run computed code chunks,
but their shortcodes are still re-evaluated.
So {{< now >}} is best for things like copyright notices in footers
– try {{< now year >}} for that one – or other places where you know
that quarto render is synonymous with “last updated”.
Alternatively, you can use the {{< modified >}} shortcode to include
the last modified date and/or time of the document. This shortcode uses
the modified metadata field to determine the last modified date and
time of the document. On macOS and Linux, the modified timestamp can be
automatically determined from the source file.
---
modified: "2006-05-04 12:34:56"
---
Document last modified: {{< modified >}}.Document last modified: 2024-03-29 09:22:31.
Caution
Automatic file-modified detection is only available on macOS and
Linux, since it relies the stat command to determine the last
modified time of the input document.
If you’re on Windows, or if your system doesn’t support stat, you
can add modified to the document metadata to specify the last
modified date and time. Use YYYY-MM-DD format with optional time
HH:MM:SS in 24-hour format.
---
modified: 2006-05-04
# -- or --
modified: "2006-05-04 12:30"
---Both {{< now >}} and {{< modified >}} shortcodes accept an optional
argument specifying the desired format of the date and/or time.
You can use one of the predefined format aliases in the table below.
| Shortcode | Result | Format String |
|---|---|---|
{{< now >}} |
2024-03-29 09:22:32 | "%F %T" |
{{< now year >}} |
2024 | "%Y" |
{{< now month >}} |
March | "%B" |
{{< now day >}} |
29 | "%d" |
{{< now weekday >}} |
Friday | "%A" |
{{< now hour >}} |
09 | "%I" |
{{< now minute >}} |
22 | "%M" |
{{< now ampm >}} |
AM | "%p" |
{{< now date >}} |
03/29/24 | "%x" |
{{< now time >}} |
09:22:32 | "%X" |
{{< now datetime >}} |
Fri Mar 29 09:22:32 2024 | "%c" |
{{< now isodate >}} |
2024-03-29 | "%F" |
{{< now isotime >}} |
09:22:32 | "%T" |
{{< now isodatetime >}} |
2024-03-29T09:22:32-0400 | "%FT%T%z" |
{{< now timestamp >}} |
2024-03-29 09:22:32 | "%F %T" |
Alternatively, you can specify the specific format using the format
strings known to the Lua os.date()
function.
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
%a |
abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Wed) |
%A |
full weekday name (e.g., Wednesday) |
%b |
abbreviated month name (e.g., Sep) |
%B |
full month name (e.g., September) |
%c |
date and time (e.g., 09/16/98 23:48:10) |
%d |
day of the month (16) [01-31] |
%H |
hour, using a 24-hour clock (23) [00-23] |
%I |
hour, using a 12-hour clock (11) [01-12] |
%M |
minute (48) [00-59] |
%m |
month (09) [01-12] |
%p |
either "am" or "pm" (pm) |
%S |
second (10) [00-61] |
%w |
weekday (3) [0-6 = Sunday-Saturday] |
%x |
date (e.g., 09/16/98) |
%X |
time (e.g., 23:48:10) |
%Y |
full year (1998) |
%y |
two-digit year (98) [00-99] |
%% |
the character % |
When using a custom format string, you can include any additional text you want. If your format string includes a space, be sure to wrap the format string in quotes.
Modified {{< modified "on %A, %B %d of %Y" >}}.Modified on Friday, March 29 of 2024.