What are the benefits of using Quarto over RMarkdown?

Question

Quarto is a new open-source scientific and technical publishing system that claims to be the "next generation version of R Markdown from RStudio". I'm an avid RMarkdown user and I have not yet fully understood what are the advantages of using Quarto over RMarkdown. Both seems very similar.

Are there important differences between RMarkdown and Quarto to be aware of?

Answer 1

The key differences, and advantages for me, of using qmd instead of rmd include:

• removes the bookdown pkg as a dependency in my scientific writing, it has simpler and universal cross-referencing
• simpler integration with lua filters (I use them for author affiliation details)
• multi-language and multi-engine: Python, R, and JavaScript via integration with Jupyter, Knitr, and Observable.
• easy two column (and more) flexible content layouts for displaying images, code, text, tables, plots, anything
• Global chunk options set in YAML, rather than a separate setup chunk
• Easier to show verbatim chunks, good for writing tutorials and guides
• Chunk options as YAML with the special hashpipe #|

Other details I find satisfying:

• fully mostly back compatible with Rmd
• works well in VS Code, Emacs, etc., it's less bound to RStudio as an IDE