Skip to main content

Fenced div info string starts with -

markdown
The word after a fenced div’s opening colons starts with -, which Quarto 2 reserves for the block deletion mark ::: --.

Q-2-53 — Fenced div info string starts with -

The word after a fenced div’s opening colons starts with -, which Quarto 2 reserves for the block deletion mark ::: --.

What this means

A fenced div opens with a line of three or more colons. The colons can be followed by a single bare word, which becomes the div’s class (::: note is <div class="note">), or by an attribute block (::: {.note #intro}).

In Quarto 2, the bare word cannot start with -. After the colons, a leading - is reserved for editorial marks. ::: -- opens a block whose content is marked as deleted. It is the block form of the inline [-- deleted text]. The marks ::: ++ (inserted), ::: >> (comment) and ::: !! (highlighted) work the same way.

So ::: --foo, ::: --- and ::: -x are errors, not divs.

Why this happens

  • A block deletion mark with no space after it. ::: -- has to be followed by a space, the end of the line, or an attribute block (::: --{author="me"}). ::: --draft is read as an attempt to name a class --draft.
  • A document written for Quarto 1 or Pandoc. Both read ::: --foo as a div with class --foo. A class name starting with dashes is unusual, and we have not found one in practice. If you do use one, it now has to be set as an attribute.

How to fix

To mark the content as deleted, put a space or a line break after the two dashes:

::: --

This paragraph is marked as deleted.

:::

To use a class whose name starts with -, set it with a class attribute (the .name shorthand does not accept a leading - either):

::: {class="--foo"}

Content.

:::

Better still, rename the class so that it starts with a letter: ::: foo or ::: {.foo}.