❓ FAQs

What are the pros and cons of using .HTML as a dashboard/report format?

✅ Pros

A HTML file is just a file. They’re extremely portable and can be opened anywhere. All that your users need is a web browser, there’s no dependency on Word, Adobe Reader, or any specific programme. You can put them on SharePoint, host them on a website or just share them the same way you would share any file.

HTML files are also great for interactive content. HTML files lets you include:

interactive plots,
filterable, sortable tables
zoomable maps
any other HTML widgets

❌ Cons

Some users find them weird. HTML dashboards just aren’t as common as PDF or Word documents. So people don’t understand that a HTML file doesn’t mean it’s online.

There also isn’t an easy way to suggest edits in a HTML file. You can’t track changes or highlight text easily directly in the HTML file which makes it less good for quick feedback.

How do I hide code in my Quarto reports?

By default, Quarto shows code and it’s output. If you only want the output (e.g., a plot or table), you have two options:

Hide code for a single chunk

```{r}
#| echo: false
plot(cars)
```

Or it you can hide code for the whole document by default by adding this to your YAML header:

---
execute:
    echo: false
---

Tip

📚 Learn more about code chunk execution options

How do I add alt text to my plots?

Alt text is essential for accessibility. You can define it with the fig-alt chunk option:

```{r}
#| fig-alt: "A scatterplot showing car speed (4–25 mph) on the x-axis and stopping distance (2–120 ft) on the y-axis. Points trend upward, indicating that higher speeds are associated with longer stopping distances. The relationship is roughly linear but with increasing spread at higher speeds."
plot(cars)
```

Tip

📚 Tips for writing alt text

I’m moving from RMarkdown to Quarto - what are the key differences?

R Markdown uses .Rmd files, Quarto uses .qmd
R Markdown relies on the {knitr} and {rmarkdown} R packages, Quarto has its own engine and command-line tool you need to install
RMarkdown was built for R users. Quarto is language agnostic (R, Python, Julia, Observable)

One of the main practical differences for users is the define global chunk options. In R Markdown, you have to include a set up code chunk at the top of your document.

```{r}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE)
```

In Quarto, you specify your document-wide options in the YAML at the start of the document. Much neater!¹

---
title: "Title"
format: html
execute:
  echo: false
---

Tip

📚 Learn more about the differences between RMarkdown and Quarto

How do I brand my Quarto reports?

The way you style and brand your report depends on the format:

HTML → CSS / SASS

format:
  html:
    theme: styles.css

PDF → LaTeX template

format:
  pdf:
    template: mytemplate.tex

Word → Word reference document

format:
  docx:
    reference-doc: template.docx

Tip

📚 Learn more about themeing Quarto documents

You can also use brand.yml. Posit created a unified branding tool that lets you set basic colours and fonts consistently across Quarto, Shiny, and ggplot2.

Can I loop over parameters to generate multiple reports?

Yes! Here’s a minimal example that usese the {quarto} R package to programmatically render multiple reports.

data(diamonds, package = "ggplot2")
cuts <- unique(diamonds$cut) # Parameter in your report

# Build report instructions
reports <- tibble::tibble(
  input = "diamonds.qmd",
  output_file = stringr::str_glue("{cuts}.html"),
  execute_params = purrr::map(cuts, ~ list(cut = .x))
)

# Render all reports
purrr::pwalk(
  reports,
  ~ quarto::quarto_render(input = ..1, output_file = ..2, execute_params = ..3)
)

You could also write some bash script if you wanted to use the Quarto CLI instead of R.

Tip

📚 Learn more about parameterised reports

Footnotes

And easier to remember!↩︎