With Quarto can I put all figures in the margin?

Question

Is there a YAML option that I can set to cause every figure to appear in the margin of a Quarto document?

I know I can put individual figures in the margin by using a fenced div like:

::: {.column-margin}
![Plots of Ansocombe's quartet](images/c01/fig-01-01.jpg){#fig-01-01}
:::

but I don't want to do this for dozens of images throughout a book if I can avoid it.

Answer 1

As far as I can tell, there is no documentation suggesting that there is a YAML option for what you are trying to do. However, I have come up with a solution that appears to be working to accomplish your goal. I haven't tested this outside of HTML yet, so your mileage may vary.

First, you'll need the following YAML frontmatter in your QMD file:

---
format: html
filters: 
  - at: pre-quarto
    path: image_filter.lua
---

Then in image_filter.lua:

function Plain(el)
    if el.content[1].t == "Image" then
        path = el.content[1].src

        image = pandoc.Image("", path, "", pandoc.Attr("", { "column-margin" }))
        plain = pandoc.Plain(image)
        return pandoc.Div(plain, pandoc.Attr("", { "column-margin" }))
    else
        return el
    end
end

Then we can test with a full QMD file:

---
format: html
filters: 
  - at: pre-quarto
    path: image_filter.lua
---

This is some text to test placement

![Quarto logo](./quarto_logo.jpg){#fig-quarto}

Going to test cross-reference too

@fig-quarto

Gives us: