Quarto

🔍🛠️ Overview

Quarto is an open-source scientific and technical publishing system built on Pandoc. It enables the creation of documents, presentations, websites, and reports from plain text files written in markdown and code.

💡 Key Features

• Supports multiple output formats: HTML, PDF, Word, reveal.js slides, and more
• Integrates with R, Python, Julia, and Observable JavaScript for reproducible research
• Powerful extension system for custom themes and layouts
• Simple authoring with markdown enhanced by code execution and rich media
• Easy to publish and share documents and presentations

🚀 My Use Case

I use Quarto to generate Reveal.js slides more easily for presentations, leveraging its smooth integration of markdown and code.

⚙️ Setup & Configuration

Install Quarto locally by following instructions on the official website.

Basic command to render a presentation:

quarto render presentation.qmd --to revealjs

📚 Resources

• Quarto Official Website
• Reveal.js Presentation Framework
• Quarto Documentation - Presentations

🧠 Notes & Tips

• Quarto slides support interactive elements and live code execution, making your presentations engaging.
• Good for combining narrative with data science workflows.
• Can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines for automated presentation updates.

🚀 GitLab CI/CD Demo for Quarto Slides Deployment

This GitLab CI/CD pipeline automates the building and deployment of Quarto presentations using Reveal.js on GitLab Pages.

The .gitlab-ci.yml file

image: pgalmiche0/defense-presentation-quarto:v1

stages:
  - build
  - deploy

# Define the build job
build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - cd quarto # Change directory to the 'quarto' folder inside the project
    - quarto render index.qmd --to revealjs
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - quarto/_output # Store the '_output' folder for deployment
  only:
    - main

# Define the deploy job for GitLab Pages
pages:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - mv quarto/_output public # Move the build output to the 'public' directory for GitLab Pages
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - public
  only:
    - main

Pipeline Breakdown

• Docker Image:
  Uses the pre-built Docker image pgalmiche0/defense-presentation-quarto:v1 which has Quarto and required dependencies installed.

• Stages:
  The pipeline consists of two main stages:

• build — Compiles the Quarto presentation into HTML slides.
• deploy — Publishes the generated slides to GitLab Pages.

Jobs Explained

• Build Job:
• Changes directory to the quarto folder where the source .qmd files live.
• Runs quarto render index.qmd --to revealjs to generate the Reveal.js slides.
• Saves the _output folder as an artifact to be passed to the next stage.

• Runs only on the main branch.

• Pages Job:

• Moves the generated _output folder to public, which is the required folder for GitLab Pages deployment.
• Publishes the public folder as an artifact.
• Runs only on the main branch.

Benefits

• Automated Workflow: No manual build or deployment steps needed — everything is handled on every push to main.
• Consistent Environment: Using a Docker image ensures that builds happen in a clean, reproducible environment.
• Instant Updates: Your presentation is always up-to-date and available online via GitLab Pages.

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This setup makes it easy to maintain and share your Quarto Reveal.js slides with minimal hassle.