Quarto Websites: Create and Publish Your First Website

R
Quarto
Github
Workshop
Author

Harsha Chamara Hewage

Published

November 12, 2025



Who is the Course For?

This course is designed for researchers, students, and practitioners, who wish to create a personal or project website using the Quarto framework.

It assumes familiarity with R and RStudio, but no prior experience with HTML, CSS, or GitHub Pages is required.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Set up and connect Git with RStudio
  • Build and preview a basic website using Quarto templates
  • Customize website appearance using YAML
  • Create multiple pages, listings, and navigation bars
  • Publish the website using GitHub Pages and GitHub Actions
  • Understand how websites can be used to share research and project outputs

Prerequisites (Before the Training)

Please ensure the following are completed before attending:

  • Install R, RStudio, RTools (for Windows users), Quarto, and Git

  • Install required R packages:

    console
    install.packages(c("countdown", "usethis", "gitcreds"))

  • Create a GitHub account

  • Ensure you are comfortable using:

    • .qmd files in RStudio

    • The R Console and Terminal tabs

    • Basic navigation of GitHub repositories

  • Bring a photo of yourself (.jpg or .png) — this will be used on your homepage.

  • Prepare a short personal introduction (3–4 lines) — this will be added as your website bio.

Topics & structure

Section Topic Activities
1 Connect RStudio with Git Live demo + setup + token config
2 Build the Homepage Use quarto use template
3 Styling your Website Modify _quarto.yml
4 Pages and Navigation Add .qmd pages and navbar
5 Listings Create blog/projects listings
6 Publish using GitHub Pages Configure workflow + publish
7 Wrap-up & Q&A Share published sites