Publishing Quarto Documents

From your desktop to the web

Author

HRED 7180

File specifics

You’ve been rendering .qmd files to HTML on your own machine. That HTML file lives in your project folder, nobody else can see it unless you email it around. Today we cover two ways to put it somewhere others can reach: QuartoPub and GitHub Pages.

Rendered HTML vs. other review methods

Before we publish anything, be clear on what you’re sharing:

  • The .qmd source file is your working document — code and prose together. Sharing this only helps someone who plans to open it in RStudio and re-run it.
  • A rendered .html file emailed as an attachment is the finished product, but resources should be embedded.
  • A published HTML page (QuartoPub or GitHub Pages) is the same finished product, but delivered as a URL. No download or attachment, works on a phone.

The rendered HTML is a product that can be viewed in the browser.