Closing Quote Without Matching Open Quote
Q-2-10 — Closing Quote Without Matching Open Quote
A closing single-quote mark appears with no opening single-quote earlier in the block.
What this means
Quarto markdown treats single quotes as a paired construct: a
' preceded by a word-character is read as a closing quote.
When the parser sees a closing position without an earlier
matching open, it raises this error.
The diagnostic message points at the closing quote as the trigger; the actual mistake is usually the missing opening quote.
Why this happens
The most common cause is a contraction or possessive — it's,
don't, Mary's — where the apostrophe is being read as a
closing quote. The parser distinguishes apostrophes from quote
marks by surrounding context, and a stray space can flip the
interpretation.
How to fix
If the mark is an apostrophe, ensure no spurious whitespace
precedes it. If the construction really is a quotation, add the
opening ' at the intended start.
For literal apostrophes that the parser keeps mis-reading, escape them:
The variable \'x\' (treated literally).Example
a' b.The ' after a is read as a closing quote with no opener.