Callouts at page bottom are split across two pages.

[wlatendresse]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

Callouts placed at the bottom of the page that are shorter than the page height are split across two pages, which looks unprofessional.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a new project via quarto create project manuscript quarto-individual-callout-placement
2. Copy the attached ìndex.md and callout_contents.md into the project directory. Replce the existing ìndex.qmdwithindex.md` via rename.
3. Preview the project via quarto preview quarto-individual-callout-placement/ --render all --debug
4. Check the placement of the callouts in the resulting PDF and MS Word (DOCX) outputs.

callout_contents.md

index.md

Actual behavior

If a callout begins just before the end of the page, it will be split across the current page and the next page.

This is true for PDF and DOCX. Other formats have not been checked.

Expected behavior

It would be much more advantageous to place an automatic {{< pagebreak >}} before such callouts if there is not enough space before the end of the page. It should be possible to disable this behavior via the callout’s configuration (in case of potential issues).

Your environment

• OS: Linux
• IDE: None

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.9.37
[✓] Checking environment information...
Quarto cache location: /home/mint/.cache/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
Pandoc version 3.8.3: OK
Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
Deno version 2.4.5: OK
Typst version 0.14.2: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
Version: 1.9.37
Path: /opt/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
TinyTeX: v2026.04
Chromium: (not installed)
Chrome Headless Shell: (not installed)
VeraPDF: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
Using: TinyTex
Path: /home/mint/.TinyTeX/bin/x86_64-linux
Version: 2026

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
Using: Chrome found on system
Path: /usr/bin/google-chrome
Source: PATH

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

[✓] Checking R installation...........(None)

  Unable to locate an installed version of R.
  Install R from https://cloud.r-project.org/

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
Version: 3.12.3
Path: /home/mint/Desktop/quarto-env/bin/python3
Jupyter: 5.9.1
Kernels: python3

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

[✓] Checking Julia installation...

[mcanouil]

It would be much more advantageous to place an automatic {{< pagebreak >}} before such callouts if there is not enough space before the end of the page. It should be possible to disable this behavior via the callout’s configuration (in case of potential issues).

You are assuming that "enough space" can be computed programmatically in LaTeX and docx (OpenXML).
This requires quite some tooling and user preferences for LaTeX.
For docx, there are no computing ability, it's a storage format, so there is no concept of "enough space" or vertical space available.
In Typst, you can avoid the callout to be "breakable" via a show rule targeting them and changing the default. (edit: by default callouts have breakable: false).

Note that this kind of behaviour will happen for other elements. It's not limited to callout environments.

In my opinion, that's something to be dealt with by users based on their output. (feature parity is not possible and it adds complexity compared to manually inserting pagebreak when/if needed)

[mcanouil]

For reference:

• Page Break Issue with Long Lists in Callout Boxes for PDF Rendering #11212
• https://github.com/orgs/quarto-dev/discussions/14385

[mcanouil]

By the way, could you paste your document as plain text instead of attachment?

---

You can share a self-contained "working" (reproducible) Quarto document using the following syntax, i.e., using more backticks than you have in your document (usually four ````).
See https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#small-is-beautiful-aim-for-a-single-document-with-10-lines.

If you have multiple files (and if it is absolutely required to have multiple files), please share as a Git repository.

R	Python
````qmd --- title: "Reproducible Quarto Document" format: html engine: knitr --- This is a reproducible Quarto document. {{< lipsum 1 >}} ```{r} x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) y <- c(1, 4, 9, 16, 25) plot(x, y) ``` {#fig-placeholder} {{< lipsum 1 >}} The end after @fig-placeholder. ````	````qmd --- title: "Reproducible Quarto Document" format: html engine: jupyter --- This is a reproducible Quarto document. {{< lipsum 1 >}} ```{python} import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] y = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25] plt.plot(x, y) plt.show() ``` {#fig-placeholder} {{< lipsum 1 >}} The end after @fig-placeholder. ````

Additionally and if not already given, please share the output of quarto check within a code block (i.e., using three backticks ```txt), see https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#check.

[wlatendresse]

You are assuming that "enough space" can be computed programmatically in LaTeX and docx (OpenXML). This requires quite some tooling and user preferences for LaTeX.

That's correct, and at least in the case of PDF, I'm fairly certain it's possible.

The excessive effort may be due to an architecture that wasn’t refined enough in the initial stages. In principle, a single callout can be rendered on a predefined page size, which also determines its size relative to the page size. Of course, that would require an intermediate step, but as far as I’ve seen so far, that happens in some places in Quarto anyway.

[wlatendresse]

By the way, could you paste your document as plain text instead of attachment?

You can share a self-contained "working" (reproducible) Quarto document using the following syntax, i.e., using more backticks than you have in your document (usually four ````). See https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#small-is-beautiful-aim-for-a-single-document-with-10-lines.

It might be useful to change that "Issue template" in that case, although it is mentioned at the very top that it`s possible tocopy documents into the issue template, it would be much more obvious to place this information under “Your Environment,” since such documents might well be part of “the environment.”

Furthermore, the template explicitly states there: “Paste, drop, or click to add files.”

Don't blame a busy user for a platform's shortcomings.

[mcanouil]

For LaTeX, it appears you could use the following, but side effects on other components are highly probable.
This would cause a behaviour similar to Typst breakable: false.
This also means that long callout won't break either thus overflow the page.

include-in-header:
  text: |
    \AtBeginDocument{\pgfkeys{/tcb/breakable/.default=false}}

[wlatendresse]

Thanks. I don't necessarily rely on it; I'm just pointing out the errors and inconsistencies that catch my eye while I'm working on documents.

And unfortunately, there are still a lot of other problems and inconsistencies that I don't quite have time to address right now, but I'll get around to them eventually.