code blocks in the margin for pdf output fail

[aavilaherrera]

Bug description

A quarto document that puts a code block in the margin fails to render to pdf (via latex). Possibly related to #5554. Bug encountered with quarto version 1.7.31 and in latest pre-release: 1.87

Steps to reproduce

Render the following mre like so quarto render mre.qmd --to pdf

---
---

[`backticks work`]{.aside}

```{r}
#| column: margin
#this doesn't work:
matrix(1:25, 5, 5)
```

::: {.column-margin}
this doesn't work either:

```r
matrix(1:25, 5, 5)
```
:::

Actual behavior

The latex to pdf step fails.

ERROR: 
compilation failed- error
Paragraph ended before \FV@BeginScanning was complete.
<to be read again> 
                   \par 
l.237 
      
I suspect you've forgotten a `}', causing me to apply this
control sequence to too much text. How can we recover?
My plan is to forget the whole thing and hope for the best.

 

see mre.log for more information.

mre.log contains:

Runaway argument?
 \CommentTok {\#doesn\textquotesingle {}t work} \FunctionTok {matrix}\ETC.
! Paragraph ended before \FV@BeginScanning was complete.
<to be read again> 
                   \par 
l.237 
      
I suspect you've forgotten a `}', causing me to apply this
control sequence to too much text. How can we recover?
My plan is to forget the whole thing and hope for the best.

Expected behavior

A pdf with a code block in the margin should be rendered. Rendering to html works just fine (--to html). An attempt to use the wkhtmltopdf engine succeeded (--to pdf --pdf-engine wkhtmltopdf --metadata title="mre"), but rendered the margin note as part of the main text.

Your environment

• OS: Debian 12
• IDE: vim 9

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.8.7
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /home/aram/.cache/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.6.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      Deno version 2.3.1: OK
      Typst version 0.13.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.8.7
      Path: /home/aram/.local/opt/quarto-1.8.7/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2025.05
      Chromium: 869685

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /home/aram/.TinyTeX/bin/x86_64-linux
      Version: 2025

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Chrome:  (not detected)

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.11.2
      Path: /usr/bin/python3
      Jupyter: 4.12.0
      Kernels: python3

(-) Checking Jupyter engine render....[IPKernelApp] ERROR | No such comm target registered: quarto_kernel_setup
[✓] Checking Jupyter engine render....OK

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.2.2
      Path: /usr/lib/R
      LibPaths:
        - /home/aram/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.2
        - /usr/local/lib/R/site-library
        - /usr/lib/R/site-library
        - /usr/lib/R/library
      knitr: 1.50
      rmarkdown: 2.29

[✓] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

[mcanouil]

Thanks for the report.
This seems to be a limitation of the LaTeX marginnote package but not limited to it.
To be clear about marginnote limitation, Verbatim environment is not supported in it.

https://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/marginnote/marginnote.pdf

FWIW, putting a code block in the margin never worked for LaTeX format in Quarto, so this is not a regression.

Note that the log shared is not complete (from 26fa297), the full error message is:

ERROR: 
compilation failed- error
Paragraph ended before \FV@BeginScanning was complete.
<to be read again> 
                   \par 
l.223 
      
I suspect you've forgotten a `}', causing me to apply this
control sequence to too much text. How can we recover?
My plan is to forget the whole thing and hope for the best.

 

see /Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-playground/index.log for more information.
WARN: Should not have arrived here:
ERROR: [non-error-thrown] undefined

Stack trace:
    at Command.handleError (https://deno.land/x/cliffy@v1.0.0-rc.3/command/command.ts:2202:11)
    at Command.parseCommand (https://deno.land/x/cliffy@v1.0.0-rc.3/command/command.ts:1782:12)
    at eventLoopTick (ext:core/01_core.js:178:7)
    at async quarto (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/src/quarto.ts:193:5)
    at async file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/src/quarto.ts:225:5
    at async file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/src/core/main.ts:45:14
    at async mainRunner (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/src/core/main.ts:47:5)
    at async file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/src/quarto.ts:215:3

[mcanouil]

Here is a small reproducible example showing the verbatim environment issue inside the marginnote macro:

---
format: pdf
keep-tex: true
---

```{r}
#| column: margin
#| echo: false
"hello"
```

From which you can make the following very simple LaTeX example:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{marginnote}
\begin{document}

\marginnote{\begin{verbatim}
[1] "hello"
\end{verbatim}}

\end{document}

[cderv]

Same with putting non-executable code block in margin. It does not work in PDF for same limitation

---
format: pdf
keep-tex: true
---

::: {.column-margin}
```{.yaml}
key: value
```
:::

\marginnote{\begin{footnotesize}

\begin{Shaded}
\begin{Highlighting}[]
\FunctionTok{key}\KeywordTok{:}\AttributeTok{ value}
\end{Highlighting}
\end{Shaded}

\end{footnotesize}}

\begin{Highlighting}[] is based on Verbatim

For HTML it works.

[mcanouil]

Yes, as long as Verbatim environment is used (indirectly with Skylighting), it will fail.

[aavilaherrera]

Thank you for taking a look. Hopefully, there is a work around somewhere. Or perhaps this is a sign I'm straying too far from the path jamming code blocks into the margin.

[cderv]

Hopefully, there is a work around somewhere

As LaTeX's marginnote environment does not support it, I don't see what could be done to make it work.

We could improve the situation by detecting when this is happening and warning of an error. We could also warn and not put it into the margin, so that the document still renders with LaTeX. But this would be a different output for PDF and HTML.

Solving this would need to use a different LaTeX environment to handle margin content... Changing Verbatim is harder, as this is used by Pandoc for any syntax-highlighted content. We'll look into this. However,if someone has a solution, please do share 😄