Is the "From Template" option available for Quarto documents like R Markdown?

[danielludolf]

I have built R packages in the past that include custom R Markdown templates that render to PDF or HTML, but I did not see the option initially available for Quarto documents when in RStudio. Is creating a R package that includes custom templates an option for Quarto? If so, are there any reference materials on how this is possible?

[maxdrohde]

This may be an example of what you're looking for?

https://github.com/quarto-journals/

[danielludolf]

@maxdrohde The link you provided is helpful, but I was more curious if Chapter 17 from R Markdown: The Definitive Guide's capabilities were available within Quarto? The templates I have created are custom company templates, and I do not necessarily have an interest in creating new templates based on journals.

[dragonstyle]

In Quarto, we don't yet have the nice integration for creating a new file or project from a template, but we have the raw materials in the form of format extensions. These allow you to author reusable formats (e.g. mycorp-pdf) that would bundle the styling and so on that you would like. Users can install these format extensions and then just target that format to use it when rendering a document.

See https://quarto.org/docs/extensions/formats.html#format-templates for more about this.

[mcanouil]

I suggest to take a look at a quick demo made by @jthomasmock https://github.com/jthomasmock/octavo to embed a Quarto extension in an R package (source: https://twitter.com/thomas_mock/status/1558919681263689733)
To note, several alternatives are possible.

As for RMarkdown, files can be added into inst directory, and one can write a function to copy the files in the current Quarto project.
For now, the r package quarto can't install extension, I made a PR to add this feature (quarto-dev/quarto-r#45). In theory, you could then use it to install/use an extension/format from within any R package (maybe I'll have to tweak a bit the functions in the PR, or at least test for this use case).