SimpleTable is not supported

A Lua filter used the legacy pre-pandoc-2.10 SimpleTable API, which Quarto does not implement.

Q-11-2 — SimpleTable is not supported

A Lua filter used the legacy pre-pandoc-2.10 SimpleTable API, which Quarto does not implement.

What this means

Pandoc has had two table representations. The original SimpleTable was replaced in pandoc 2.10 by the richer pandoc.Table, which can express row and column spans, multiple header rows, table bodies, and a caption. SimpleTable survives in pandoc only as a compatibility shim.

Quarto does not carry that shim. Three names are affected:

• pandoc.SimpleTable
• pandoc.utils.to_simple_table
• pandoc.utils.from_simple_table

A filter calling any of them stops with this error.

Why this happens

• A filter written against a pandoc 2.9-or-earlier tutorial. Much of the Lua filter material online predates the 2.10 change.
• A filter copied from a long-lived project that was written before 2.10 and kept working in pandoc through the shim.
• Round-tripping to simplify table handling — to_simple_table followed by from_simple_table was a common way to avoid the full Table structure.

How to fix

Work with pandoc.Table directly. A Table element has these fields:

Field	Holds
caption	a Caption
colspecs	alignment and width per column
head	a TableHead
bodies	a list of TableBody
foot	a TableFoot

Reading cell contents means walking head.rows and each body’s body rows, rather than the flat rows list SimpleTable offered:

function Table(tbl)
  for _, body in ipairs(tbl.bodies) do
    for _, row in ipairs(body.body) do
      for _, cell in ipairs(row.cells) do
        -- cell.contents is a list of Blocks
      end
    end
  end
  return tbl
end

The structure is more verbose, but it is the only representation that can round-trip a table without losing spans or a caption — which is why the simple form was retired.