Setup

To follow along with the course exercises, you’ll need Quarto version 1.8+ and access to a code editor that supports R.

While Quarto itself doesn’t require a programming language, the exercises will include code chunks in R. If you don’t already have R set up locally, I recommend using a cloud-based option like Posit Cloud.

Recommended setup options

Option 1: Posit Cloud (RStudio in the cloud)

Create a free account at https://posit.cloud/
Join the Posit Cloud workspace: https://posit.cloud/spaces/704423/join?access_code=fDGrujjY7mb1j-9bq-dlKl7JZw5XkLdq5sm3cFoE
Click “Yes” to join the space.
Click Content and select one of these (depending on which activity we’re doing):
- quarto-websites-exercise-intro_2025-10
- quarto-websites-exercise-site_2025-10
To save a copy of the project to your workspace, click “Save a permanent copy”.

Option 2: Local installation

Choose one editor and follow the steps:

Download and install RStudio: https://posit.co/downloads/
- Make sure RStudio is version 2022.07+.
Quarto comes pre-installed.
- Make sure Quarto is version 1.8+.

Download and install Positron: https://positron.posit.co/download.html
Quarto comes pre-installed.
- Make sure Quarto is version 1.8+.

Download and install VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/download/
Download and install Quarto: https://quarto.org/docs/get-started/
Install the following extensions:
- Quarto Extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=quarto.quarto/
- Jupyter Extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-toolsai.jupyter/

Accessing the course materials

If you are using a cloud-based option, the files will be included in the respecitve project folders.

If you are not using a cloud-based option:

If you don’t use Git/GitHub:

Go to the GitHub repos for each example project:
- https://github.com/andrewheiss/quarto-websites-exercise-intro_2025-10
- https://github.com/andrewheiss/quarto-websites-exercise-site_2025-10
Click the green “Code” button → “Download ZIP”.
Unzip the folder and open it in your chosen editor.

If you use Git/GitHub:

Exercises are available here:
- https://github.com/andrewheiss/quarto-websites-exercise-intro_2025-10
- https://github.com/andrewheiss/quarto-websites-exercise-site_2025-10

Clone each repository with Git:

git clone https://github.com/andrewheiss/quarto-websites-exercise-intro_2025-10.git
git clone https://github.com/andrewheiss/quarto-websites-exercise-site_2025-10.git

Install the necessary R packages

If you are using Posit Cloud, the packages will be pre-installed.

If you are using RStudio or Positron locally, install all the packages we’ll use with:

install.packages(
  c("tidyverse", "quarto", "patchwork", "ggridges", "tinytable", "brand.yml"),
  repos = c('https://posit-dev.r-universe.dev', 'https://cloud.r-project.org')
)

Create publishing accounts

For the section on publishing, you’ll neeed to create two free accounts (if you don’t have them already):

Credits

These instructions were adapted from Isabella Velásquez and Sara Altman’s posit::conf(2025) workshop on branded Quarto documents ( GitHub repository). They graciously licensed their content under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA .