Quarto Date formatting

[nithinmkp]

Description

I am writing a thesis in quarto. i have university requirements and corresponding latex template. for example in title page i need to give month and year of submission. and also only year in a filed of copyright. I know i can pass date in quarto get year month format for submission. i do this by modifying and using latex partials. What i want to do is use the passed YAML date and use only year part of that in my copyright field.
my template looks like this

$if(has-frontmatter)$
\frontmatter
$endif$

$if(title)$
\thispagestyle{plain}
\begin{center}
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1}\selectfont % Adjust line spacing
{\Large \textbf{$title$}\\}
\vspace*{1.0cm}

$for(by-author)$
$for(by-author.affiliations)$
{\em Thesis submitted to \\ $it.name$\\}
{\em for the award of the degree}\\
\vspace*{0.4cm} {\em of} \\
\vspace*{0.4cm}
{\Large \textbf{Doctor of Philosophy}}\\ % Use degree from YAML
\vspace*{0.4cm}
{\em by}\\
\vspace*{0.4cm}
{\Large \textbf{$by-author.name.literal$}}\\
$endfor$
$endfor$

\vspace*{2cm}
{\em under the guidance of}\\
\vspace*{0.3cm}
{\textbf{Dr. Siddhartha Chattopadhyay}}\\ % Use guide from YAML

$for(by-author)$
$for(by-author.affiliations)$
$if(it.department)$
{\em ($it.department$)} % Print department if available
$endif$
$endfor$
$endfor$

\vspace*{1.6cm}

\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[height=4cm,width=3.5cm]{iitlogo.pdf} % Update the path if needed
  %\caption{Institution Logo}
\end{figure}

{\textbf {\uppercase{$for(by-author)$$for(by-author.affiliations)$$it.department$\\
$it.name$$endfor$$endfor$}}\\
\textbf{$date$}}\\
\vspace*{0.25cm} \copyright 2025 $for(by-author)$$by-author.name.literal$$endfor$. All rights reserved.
\end{center}
$endif$

what i want to do is in the third last line instead of copyright 2025 which is hardcoded, i want to pass quarto date, something like this

\vspace*{0.25cm} \copyright year($date$) $for(by-author)$$by-author.name.literal$$endfor$. All rights reserved.

minimal qmd file looks like this

project:
  type: book

book:
  title: "Consumer Sentiments"
  author: 
    - name: "Nithin M"
      affiliations:
        - name: "Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur"
          department: "Department of Humanities and Social Sciences"
  chapters:
    - index.qmd
    - summary.qmd
    - references.qmd
  date: "01 June 2026"
  date-format: "MMMM YYYY"

bibliography: references.bib
format:
  pdf:
    documentclass: book
 

[mcanouil]

You need to use a Lua filter to extract the information (metadata) and format it as you need, such as new metadata entries.
Then those new entries can be used in your partials.

[nithinmkp]

can you show an example? I actually would love to define new metadata like name of supervisor and the degree too

[mcanouil]

You can look at several extension in the listings in Quarto documentation.
Take a look at the documentation on extensions, see https://quarto.org/docs/extensions/.

Quarto	Lua
--- title: "Quarto Playground" format: html date: today date-format: "YYYY-MM-DD" filters: - get_monthyear.lua --- Month: {{< meta month >}} Year: {{< meta year >}}	function Meta(meta) local date = pandoc.utils.stringify(meta.date) if date then local year, month = date:match("(%d%d%d%d)-(%d%d)") if year and month then meta.year = year meta.month = month end end return meta end

[nithinmkp]

Thanks. lua filter seems difficult at this point

[nithinmkp]

one more question here. Should the index.qmd always be inlcuded as the first chapter?
i currently have my Quarto YAML like this

project:
  type: book

book:
  title: "Consumer Sentiments"
  author: 
    - name: "Nithin M"
      affiliations:
        - name: "Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur"
          department: "Department of Humanities and Social Sciences"
  chapters:
    - dedications.qmd
    - index.qmd
    - intro.qmd
    - "Chapter1/chapter_main.qmd"
    - summary.qmd
    - references.qmd
  date: "01 June 2026"
  date-format: "MMMM YYYY"

bibliography: references.bib
format:
  pdf:
    documentclass: scrbook

I also have my index.qmd and dedications.qmd like below

index.qmd

# Acknowledgment {.unnumbered}
{{< lipsum 2 >}}

\tableofcontents
\listoftables
\listoffigures

# Abbreviations

\let\mainmatter\mainmatterreal
\mainmatter

and dedications.qmd

```{=latex}
\thispagestyle{empty}%
\vspace*{0.25\textheight}
\begin{center}
{\AlgoFont{14} {\textit {- To my parents -}}}\\
\vspace*{1.0\baselineskip}
{\AlgoFont{16} {\textsf {-To my Laptop-}}}\\
\vspace*{0.5\baselineskip}
\end{center}
\cleardoublepage
```
my idea is to avoid index.qmd altogether and define everything as separate qmd files, like acknowledgment, abbreviations etc. but index.qmd is necessary it seems

[mcanouil]

Why do you have index.qmd. It's really meaningful only for book website.
index means the first page. It does not make sense to have it in the middle.

See the documentation: https://quarto.org/docs/books/book-structure.html

[nithinmkp]

I tried it . Seems not working . This is the error

PS C:\Users\Nithin M\OneDrive\Documents\GitHub\quarto tex experiments\book> quarto render
ERROR: Book contents must include a home page (e.g. index.md)

now my chapters part of YAML looks like this

project:
  type: book

book:
  title: "Consumer Sentiments"
  author: 
    - name: "Nithin M"
      affiliations:
        - name: "Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur"
          department: "Department of Humanities and Social Sciences"
  chapters:
    - dedications.qmd
    - acknowl.qmd
    - intro.qmd
    - "Chapter1/chapter_main.qmd"
    - summary.qmd
    - references.qmd
  date: "01 June 2026"
  date-format: "MMMM YYYY"

bibliography: references.bib
format:
  pdf:
    documentclass: scrbook

and acknwl.qmd

# Acknowledgment {.unnumbered}
{{< lipsum 2 >}}

\tableofcontents
\listoftables
\listoffigures

# Abriviations

\let\mainmatter\mainmatterreal
\mainmatter

[mcanouil]

Then the index.qmd is required even for non-html output.
I suggest you rename dedications.qmd into index.qmd then.

[nithinmkp]

I thought of that. but writing a thesis we need many more pages in between. was wondering about a general solution. Thanks for chipping in always

[mcanouil]

Sorry, I don't see the issue to have your first page/chapter be index.qmd.

PS: I know exactly what and how it is to write a thesis. There is no need to explain that to me ...