Setting Up Quarto with VS Code and Python on Win 11

Prerequisite: Windows 11 operating system

We will rely heavily on the winget utility, run from PowerShell (as administrator).

Required Software with Brief Installation Instructions

Python: winget install Python
Visual Studio Code: winget install Microsoft.VisualStudioCode
Quarto: winget install --id=Posit.Quarto -e

Python packages:: python -m pip install -U jupyter matplotlib plotly
Quarto VS Code Extension: Open VS Code and install three extensions from the Visual Studio Marketplace: Python, Jupyter, and Quarto.

Create a Quarto document

Open VS Code in your desired folder and create a new file with the .qmd extension (or open an existing file).
Render the document (from the menus, or use the keyboard shortcut: :kbd:`Ctrl+Shift+K`)
For more details, read about Quarto markdown.

Troubleshooting

Verify that VS Code is using the intended Python.

Check Python version in PowerShell:

python --version
If needed (probably not), update settings.json.
```
{
  "python.defaultInterpreterPath": "mypath\\to\\python"
}
```
(This can be set at the user, workspace, or folder level.)

Metadata

Project Metadata

Place project metadata in a _quarto.yml configuration file in the project directory. Documents rendered within the project directory inherit this metadata defined at the project level. Usually you will want to direct output to a dedicated folder, to avoid cluttering your project directory. (Ask git to ignore this output folder.)

Example contents of _quarto.yml:

project:
  output-dir: _output
  eol: unix

toc: true
number-sections: true

format:
  html:
    css: styles.css
    html-math-method: katex
  pdf:
    documentclass: article

For more details, see the documentation for Project Profiles.