quarto render quarto book to pdf

[xx02al]

I'm still on my way to become better more familiar with positron. Recently I realized that I end up with an error when I do quarto render (which includes pdf) on a quarto book project in the terminal. Rendering to html works fine, in RStudio both html and pdf work fine. Kind or not, before I invest more time, I wanted to ask if there is already a clear error on my side based on this short description and/or if others observe something similar? How does it work correctly?

[juliasilge]

What happens if you do quarto install tinytex as outlined here?
https://quarto.org/docs/output-formats/pdf-basics.html#prerequisites
Does that solve the problem?

Seems likely that RStudio is bundling some prerequisites for PDF building that Positron is not yet.

[xx02al]

It asked me whether I want to update my current installation, what I agreed on. As far as I can judge this then went well. I still end in the same scenario. Does this help figure out what I am doing wrong: ERROR: NotFound ... "C\Program Files\Positron\resources\app\quarto\share\formats\pdf\pandoc\before-bib.tex"!? As I saw then, the same error appears when rendering a "simple" quarto doc to pdf. This might be more helpful, as TinyTeX is obviously not detected globally in positron.
Honestly, I don't really understand what is meant by quarto install tinytex --update-path in the documentation - can it be that quarto can recognize TinyTeX in RStudio, but not in positron (even if TinyTeX was updated from there)? Should I try quarto install tinytex --update-path or am I doing something wrong?

[juliasilge]

I don't think you're doing anything wrong @xx02al, no. I think what is happening is that Positron is bundling Quarto but not a PDF engine such as tinytex.

What we need to do is bundle tinytex or similar along with Quarto, similarly to how RStudio bundles a PDF engine.

What you need to do as a workaround for now to get unstuck is to get a version of Quarto installed that knows about a PDF engine such as tinytex. I think what I would do in your situation is close Positron, install Quarto totally fresh, do quarto install tinytex, and then try again with your simple Quarto doc to see if it is all set up correctly. Please let us know if you can't get unstuck!

[juliasilge]

I opened #5553 to track the work we need to do to get this working. Thank you for the report! 🙌

[xx02al]

Thank you @juliasilge. Interesting. I have now installed the latest version of quarto (1.6.39; which I was going to do these days anyway) and with this one rendering to pdf (that is not built from typst) works, both "simple" quarto docs and books. Before updating, I had positron 2024.12.0-41 and the quarto version must have been 1.5.55 or 1.5.57.
I then tried things out on a second device, also here up until then, rendering to pdf worked in RStudio and the error described appeared in positron. I can confirm also quarto install tinytex with a subsequent positron restart is required after updating to quarto 1.6.39.
I think it makes sense you have opened #5553.

[cderv]

To add more context

ERROR: NotFound ... "C\Program Files\Positron\resources\app\quarto\share\formats\pdf\pandoc\before-bib.tex"!?

This is a problem in the bundled version of Quarto by Positron. There are three empty file that should be in share\formats\pdf\pandoc\ and there are not inside the Quarto version bundled in Positron

❯ ls C:\Users\chris\scoop\apps\positron-daily\current\resources\app\quarto\share\formats\pdf\pandoc\

    Directory: C:\Users\chris\scoop\apps\positron-daily\current\resources\app\quarto\share\formats\pdf\pandoc

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            368 after-header-includes.latex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            787 babel-lang.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            140 before-body.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            635 biblio-config.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            338 biblio.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           1265 citations.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           1489 common.latex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            261 doc-class.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           3481 font-settings.latex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            687 fonts.latex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            583 graphics.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            653 hypersetup.latex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           6482 latex.common
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           2317 latex.template
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           1595 pandoc.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            312 passoptions.latex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            653 tables.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40           1083 template.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40             83 tightlist.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            397 title.tex
-a---          03/10/2025    07:40            289 toc.tex

compared to

❯ ls C:\Users\chris\scoop\apps\quarto\current\share\formats\pdf\pandoc\

    Directory: C:\Users\chris\scoop\apps\quarto\current\share\formats\pdf\pandoc

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-----          29/09/2025    23:14              0 after-body.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            368 after-header-includes.latex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            787 babel-lang.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14              0 before-bib.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            140 before-body.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14              0 before-title.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            635 biblio-config.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            338 biblio.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           1265 citations.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           1489 common.latex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            261 doc-class.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           3481 font-settings.latex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            687 fonts.latex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            583 graphics.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            653 hypersetup.latex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           6482 latex.common
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           2317 latex.template
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           1595 pandoc.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            312 passoptions.latex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            653 tables.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14           1083 template.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14             83 tightlist.tex
-----          29/09/2025    23:14            397 title.tex

See the 3 files with size 0. Those are empty template that are expected to be present.

So I would say there is a problem in the bundling process for Positron.

@xx02al if this is the only error you got, and you already had an install of Tex Live (or TinyTex), as I assumed to do as quarto install tinytex advised you to update, then you did nothing wrong. This should be working but the Quarto version of Positron has those missing files that are required.

You need to use a different quarto installation for now, as you did already

Interesting. I have now installed the latest version of quarto (1.6.39; which I was going to do these days anyway) and with this one rendering to pdf (that is not built from typst) works, both "simple" quarto docs and books. Before updating, I had positron 2024.12.0-41 and the quarto version must have been 1.5.55 or 1.5.57.