Quarto is an open-source scientific and technical publishing system built on Pandoc that transforms Markdown documents into multiple output formats.
Quarto solves the problem of integrating executable code with technical documentation by embedding code and output from Python, R, Julia, and JavaScript through Jupyter, Knitr, and Observable. It extends Pandoc's Markdown with features designed for technical writing—cross-references, sub-figures, layout panels, callouts, and interactive citations—and provides a project system for rendering multiple documents together with shared configuration, enabling the creation of websites and books from collections of source files.
The tool suits researchers, data scientists, and technical writers who want to combine narrative prose with live code execution and produce polished output across formats. It integrates with popular editors and notebooks including JupyterLab, RStudio, and VS Code, and includes a visual Markdown editor for long-form document composition. Developers can author in their preferred environment rather than being locked into a single tool.
The project maintains active continuous integration with parallel smoke tests and automated installer builds. Development follows a structured release process with both stable and prerelease versions tracked through GitHub releases. The codebase is written primarily in JavaScript and accepts contributions through standard pull request workflows, with a test suite that developers can run locally to validate changes before submission.
