Intro To Quarto

Quarto enables users to combine libraries and code from multiple languages (e.g., Python and R) within the same workflow and to generate sharable reports. For those familiar with R, Quarto is the "next generation of R Markdown". In this workshop we will explore Quarto using both Python and R within the same workflow, and learn how to convert the output to HTML, PDF (and other formats) to share with others.

The example here explores stock prices for Hershey's (chocolate). I downloaded the data from Yahoo finance.

The workshop presentation is avalable on Google Slides here.

Installation

1. Install Quarto:

   Documentation from Quarto can be found here. For Python folks, it might be easiest to follow the instructions to downloaded the latest .tar.gz version from their GitHub repo (see instructions), and then add the executable from <base_dir>/src/bin/ to your PATH variable. For R folks, you can do the installation all within RStudio.

2. Install Python and R and related libraries

   For Python folks, I recommend that you use conda and create an environment for this, working within miniforge. To create the environment:

   conda create --name quarto-env
   conda activate quarto-env
   conda config --add channels conda-forge
   conda config --set channel_priority strict
   conda install python=3.10 r-base=4.1.3 pandas matplotlib numpy seaborn r-rmarkdown r-reticulate
   

   For R folks, if you don't already have Python installed, you will need to install Anaconda (see links above). You shouldn't have to create a conda env. After installing Anaconda, the rest of the installation can be done within RStudio.

3. If you are using conda, before using Quarto you will need to activate your env using conda activate quarto-env

Rendering your Quarto doc to different formats

To convert one of the example files, e.g. example1.qmd into a .html file using Quarto, first download or clone this repo. Then for Python folks, in a terminal within the examples directory execute the following command:

quarto render example1.qmd --to html

For R folks, you can open the example file in RStudio and click the Render button at the top.

(You can replace html with many other formats.)