Inserting a page before the table of content in a Quarto book (.pdf format)

[arnaudgallou]

Description

I've a Quarto book project. I'd like to add a page before the table of content. Tweaking template partials seems to be the solution (#7389).

Instead of copying the content of the .qmd file into the .tex file and styling it manually with LaTeX, I'm wondering if there's a way to reference the .qmd file directly in the .tex file.

For example, considering the following firstpage.qmd that I'd like to add at the end of before-body.tex:

# First page {.unnumbered .unlisted}

Qui cupidatat minim tempor occaecat labore esse magna minim. Amet labore cupidatat eiusmod sunt. Labore aute proident cupidatat esse laborum tempor officia elit cupidatat. Aute nisi reprehenderit cillum ex laborum duis reprehenderit occaecat laborum eiusmod sunt ea et.

Veniam consequat elit dolore aliqua. Culpa mollit exercitation nulla aute in culpa. Occaecat anim Lorem nisi laboris elit velit aliqua deserunt nisi consequat.

- **a:** Velit voluptate elit ad anim cillum.
- **b:** Nisi magna fugiat veniam enim quis enim.

Is it possible to do it without rewriting everything in the .tex file? I'm rendering the book in .pdf.

before-body.tex:

$if(has-frontmatter)$
\frontmatter
$endif$
$if(title)$
$if(beamer)$
\frame{\titlepage}
$else$
\maketitle
$endif$
$if(abstract)$
\begin{abstract}
$abstract$
\end{abstract}
$endif$
$endif$
% add a command/hook to render firstpage.qmd here

I've uploaded a dummy repo here if need be.

[mcanouil]

No, you can't have markdown inside LaTeX. LaTeX does not know how to read it. It needs to be parsed first.

So, write LaTeX into a file, include that file using Pandoc templating system inside the partial of your choice.

[arnaudgallou]

Alright thanks. I was hoping for a simpler solution.

When you say:

include that file using Pandoc templating system

Do you mean something like $myfile.tex()$ and add that file to the template-partials option in _quarto.yml?

[mcanouil]

As it's not an "official" partial, I'm not sure you can control it template-partials (worth trying though).
I was mostly saying to use Pandoc template syntax which indeed is: $myfile.tex()$

[arnaudgallou]

In fact, I could only make it work by adding the file to template-partials. Otherwise I get the following error:

Could not find data file templates/myfile.tex

Since that's not documented I wasn't sure this is the right way to do it.

Also, one of the issue I noticed is that the content in myfile.tex doesn't inherit all the layout options defined in _quarto.yml. E.g., the line stretch on that particular page seems to use the default value. Not sure if this is normal though.

[mcanouil]

Also, one of the issue I noticed is that the content in myfile.tex doesn't inherit all the layout options defined in _quarto.yml. E.g., the line stretch on that particular page seems to use the default value. Not sure if this is normal though.

Are you referring to the discussion you opened?

• Using template partials in Quarto book changes the page layout #11391

[arnaudgallou]

I don't think it's related that's why I mentioned it here. The problem in #11391 is more general since it affects all pages and doesn't reset options initially set such as the font or line stretch.

What I'm talking about here is specific to the content in myfile.tex and seems to only affects specific options like the line stretch. Custom fonts are correctly inherited.

Not sure if that's actually a bug or if I'm supposed to set the line stretch manually in myfile.tex. That's why I didn't open a discussion about it.

[cderv]

FWIW someone in the past manage to change placement for pdf output by suppressing toc handling by Quarto / pandoc with toc: false and inserting raw latex directly in body where to put it

• See How to Change Table of Contents Placement in Quarto Book #9839 (comment)

Anything written in the .qmd will be in $body$ so that is one way to achieve it. Otherwise, playing with metadata variable and pandoc's template is the way for this. But the first part before toc will need to be passed a pandoc variable (directly from YAML), or using similar tricks as pandoc-ext/abstract-section indeed.

[arnaudgallou]

Using toc: false and placing \tableofcontents manually in the book is an even simpler solution than tweaking template partials and doesn't have the formatting/layout issues mentioned in the posts above.