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Unprocessed Delete Markup

writer
Delete editorial markup ({-- ...}) was not desugared to a Span during postprocessing.

Q-3-34 — Unprocessed Delete Markup

Delete editorial markup {-- ...} was not desugared to a Span during postprocessing.

What this means

Quarto’s CriticMarkup-inspired deletion construct {-- ...} is parsed as a Delete AST node. Postprocessing rewrites it as a Span with the .del class before the writer runs. This error fires when a raw Delete node reaches the writer.

This is a defensive guard. The condition is a pipeline bug, not a source-level mistake.

Why this happens

Two known triggers:

  • A Lua filter ran after postprocessing and reintroduced a Delete AST node.
  • A bug in the postprocessor that misses some deletions.

How to fix

If a custom filter is in use, ensure it does not produce Delete AST nodes after postprocessing. If no filter is in use, report the document at the Quarto issue tracker.