Listing Item Produced No Preview Content
Q-12-13 — Listing Item Produced No Preview Content
A listing item’s rendered page has no first paragraph to derive a description from; the paragraph found before rendering is used instead.
What this means
When a listed document has no description of its own (no description:
under listing-item:, no description:, no abstract:), the listing
derives one from the rendered page: its first paragraph. This warning
fires when Quarto found a first paragraph in the document before
rendering but cannot find one in the rendered output: the output has
only non-preview content (headings, raw HTML, …), or the render did
not produce a file Quarto could inspect.
The item still appears in the listing, showing the paragraph Quarto found before rendering.
A document with no paragraph at all, before or after rendering, is routine and does not warn: its listing entry simply has no description.
Why this happens
Common causes:
- A custom render path (filter, post-processor) removed or wrapped the paragraph the preview pass would have used.
- The item’s rendered output is missing — for example, a partial render that did not render the listed document.
How to fix
Add a description: to the item’s front matter — an authored
description is used as written and skips the preview pass — or check
that the item’s rendered page still has its opening paragraph.