Rowspan is dropped from list table when it contains a link

[cwickham]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

Rowspan attribute seems to be dropped from a list table in certain circumstances. In particular, when a row item is a link.

Steps to reproduce

quarto render on:

::: {.list-table} 
* - Col 1
  - Col 2
* - []{rowspan=2} **Span rows**
  - Row 1
* - Row 2
:::


::: {.list-table} 
* - Col 1
  - Col 2
* - []{rowspan=2} **Span rows**
  - <http://example.com>
* - Row 2
:::

I think this is a Quarto issue, not a Pandoc one, since with a local copy of the list-table.lua filter this command:

quarto pandoc --lua-filter list-table.lua --to=html ./link.md -o link-pandoc.html

Results in HTML that include the rowspan attribute for both tables.

Actual behavior

The first table is fine, the second table is missing the rowspan attribute:

Comparing the .html for the two tables, the first table maintains the rowspan attribute:

<tr class="odd">
<td rowspan="2"> <strong>Span rows</strong></td>
<td>Row 1</td>
</tr>

The second does not:

<tr class="odd">
<td> <strong>Span rows</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://example.com" class="uri">http://example.com</a></td>
</tr>

Expected behavior

The cell "Spans rows" in the second table should span two rows.

Your environment

• OS: Mac 26.1
• IDE: Positron 2026.01.0 build 59

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.9.12
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/charlottewickham/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.6.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      NOTE: Deno version 2.4.5 does not strictly match 2.3.1 and strict checking is enabled. Please use 2.3.1.
      Typst version 0.13.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.9.12
      Path: /Applications/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2025.12
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /Users/charlottewickham/Library/TinyTeX/bin/universal-darwin
      Version: 2025

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
      Source: MacOS known location

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.13.2
      Path: /Users/charlottewickham/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.13.2-macos-aarch64-none/bin/python
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.5.1
      Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources
      LibPaths:
        - /Users/charlottewickham/Library/R/arm64/4.5/library
        - /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
      knitr: 1.50
      rmarkdown: 2.29

[✓] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

[mcanouil]

The issue is not specific to list-table, the same issue occurs for grid-table.
The rowspan attribute is properly kept when using Pandoc alone, so it must be something in Quarto.

• Quarto is dropping table row attributes when cells contain link #13795

I tried disabling HTML processing and related options but it does not change anything.