Quarto publish to GH-pages: How to publish only one format while having multiple defined in "_quarto.yml"?

[Gewerd-Strauss]

Description

Hello there,

I am currently setting up a quarto project. Regarding outputs, I will primarily render to html. However, I will need to semi-regularly render (certain files) to docx as well. I also require online-hosting, which I satisfy via quarto publish gh-pages (cf docs)

I have issues understanding if/how I can selectively control output formats when calling quarto publish.
On the one hand, depending on how much this balloons in scope rendering multiple formats will become very time-consuming rather quickly; particularly because binary files and git are not the best match. I have a long-running git repo that is merely used for backup purposes that contains quite a number of binary files; and it has ballooned the repo. It's fine, but I'd just rather prevent it if possible.

Now. The simple solution is to remove the format-definition:

format:
  docx:
    author: GS
    toc: false
    toc-depth: 3
    number-sections: true
    number-depth: 2
    df-print: kable
    fig-dpi: 96
    fig-height: 6
    fig-depth: 8
    reference-doc: refdoc.docx

from _quarto.yml before publishing.

However, this is much more annoying and time-consuming than doing something like

quarto publish gh-pages --format html
/// OR
quarto publish gh-pages --to html

to render specific formats defined in _quarto.yml, and

quarto publish gh-pages

to render all formats defined in _quarto.yml.

I couldn't find anything in the docs regarding this. Is this just not possible/not implemented, or am I just very blind right now?
I should mention that my experiences with quarto publishing are somewhat limited, I am just testing things out for a couple days now. I don't think I missed something, but that's also entirely possible.

---

Thank you.
Sincerely,
~Gw

[mcanouil]

quarto publish can use profiles, see https://quarto.org/docs/projects/profiles.html.
Note also that the goal of publish is to deploy the documents/projects to the root, so if you don't define properly the output-dir and/or output-file you will overwrite your previously deployed "index".

Additionally, quarto publish has a "no render" option, so you can use quarto render with whatever option then use quarto publish without rendering.

Meantime, quarto publish is just a wrapper, you are not constrained to it.
You can publish yourself to GitHub Pages following GitHub documentation.

❯ quarto publish --help

  Usage:   quarto publish [provider] [path]
  Version: 99.9.9                          

  Description:

    Publish a document or project to a provider.            
                                                            
    Available providers include:                            
                                                            
     - Quarto Pub (quarto-pub)                              
     - GitHub Pages (gh-pages)                              
     - Posit Connect (connect)                              
     - Netlify (netlify)                                    
     - Confluence (confluence)                              
                                                            
    Accounts are configured interactively during publishing.
    Manage/remove accounts with: quarto publish accounts    

  Options:

    -h, --help              - Show this help.                                     
    --id          <id>      - Identifier of content to publish                    
    --server      <server>  - Server to publish to                                
    --token       <token>   - Access token for publising provider                 
    --no-render             - Do not render before publishing.                    
    --no-prompt             - Do not prompt to confirm publishing destination     
    --no-browser            - Do not open a browser to the site after publishing  
    --log         <file>    - Path to log file                                    
    --log-level   <level>   - Log level (info, warning, error, critical)          
    --log-format  <format>  - Log format (plain, json-stream)                     
    --quiet                 - Suppress console output.                            
    --profile               - Active project profile(s)                           

  Commands:

    help  [command]  - Show this help or the help of a sub-command.

  Examples:

    Publish project (prompt for provider):  quarto publish                                                  
    Publish document (prompt for provider): quarto publish document.qmd                                     
    Publish project to Netlify:             quarto publish netlify                                          
    Publish with explicit target:           quarto publish netlify --id DA36416-F950-4647-815C-01A24233E294 
    Publish project to GitHub Pages:        quarto publish gh-pages                                         
    Publish project to Posit Connect:       quarto publish connect                                          
    Publish with explicit credentials:      quarto publish connect --server example.com --token 01A24233E294
    Publish without confirmation prompt:    quarto publish --no-prompt                                      
    Publish without rendering:              quarto publish --no-render                                      
    Publish without opening browser:        quarto publish --no-browser                                     
    Manage/remove publishing accounts:      quarto publish accounts     

[cderv]

We document rendering and publishing a sinlge format with quarto-actions in examples at https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-actions/blob/main/examples/example-07-publish-single-format.md

[cderv]

Which corresponds to what has been said in other reply

Additionally, quarto publish has a "no render" option, so you can use quarto render with whatever option then use quarto publish without rendering.