Quarto `1.9.35` adds empty blank page in Typst when using a set rule for the `page()` function

[JosephBARBIERDARNAL]

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

In Quarto 1.9.35, the following example adds an extra blank page (only number page in footer) before the rest of the PDF. This means that the following example leads to a PDF with 2 pages, instead of 1 expected. This issue does not happen with Quarto 1.8.27: it renders a PDF with a single page.

I couldn't figure out why this only happens when I add a raw Typst block that uses a set rule for the page() Typst function, even if I set it to the default value (or the ones set by Quarto).

This might be a Typst issue since Quarto 1.9 uses a new Typst version, and not a Quarto issue, but I haven't been able to reproduce the issue using Typst only so my guess is that this comes from Quarto?

Steps to reproduce

---
format:
    typst:
        keep-typ: true
---

```{=typst}
#set page(footer: none)
```

```{r}
data.frame(a = c(1), b = c(2))
```

Actual behavior

Output file has 2 pages: one blank, one with the content from my Quarto document.

Expected behavior

Output file has 1 page: one with the content from my Quarto document.

Your environment

• OS: macOS Tahoe 26.3
• IDE: Positron Version: 2026.03.0

Quarto check output

• For Quarto 1.8.27

Quarto 1.8.27
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/josephbarbier/Library/Caches/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: 1.8.27
      Path: /Users/josephbarbier/Applications/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: (not installed)
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: Installation From Path
      Path: /Library/TeX/texbin
      Version: 2022

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
      Source: MacOS known location

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

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.13.1
      Path: /Users/josephbarbier/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.13.1-macos-aarch64-none/bin/python
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.5.2
      Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources
      LibPaths:
        - /Users/josephbarbier/Library/R/arm64/4.5/library
        - /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
      knitr: 1.51
      rmarkdown: 2.30

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

• For Quarto 1.9.35:

Quarto 1.9.35
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/josephbarbier/Library/Caches/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: 1.9.35
      Path: /Users/josephbarbier/Applications/quarto/bin

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

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: Installation From Path
      Path: /Library/TeX/texbin
      Version: 2022

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
      Source: MacOS known location

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

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.5.2
      Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources
      LibPaths:
        - /Users/josephbarbier/Library/R/arm64/4.5/library
        - /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
      knitr: 1.51
      rmarkdown: 2.30

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

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.13.1
      Path: /Users/josephbarbier/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.13.1-macos-aarch64-none/bin/python
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking Julia installation...

[cderv]

It seems to be a Pandoc issue

If I modify to remove computation

---
format:
  typst:
    keep-typ: true
---

```{=typst}
#set page(footer: none)
```

```r
data.frame(a = c(1), b = c(2))
```

and I try with Quarto Prerelease to render with pandoc

quarto pandoc -t typst -f markdown -s -o index.pdf index.qmd

Then I get the blank page.

So something they did in there template ? Or is this is related to typst version ?

[JosephBARBIERDARNAL]

In the template, removing this block (used to add title, authors, date and abstract) fixes the issue, even if the four of them are none.

quarto-cli/src/resources/formats/typst/pandoc/quarto/typst-template.typ

Lines 64 to 69 in 60dd710

	place(
	top,
	float: true,
	scope: "parent",
	clearance: 4mm,
	block(below: 1em, width: 100%)[

After some investigation, the smallest Typst example I could make to reproduce the issue is:

#let article(doc) = {
  place(top, float: true, scope: "parent", clearance: 4mm, [])

  doc
}

#show: doc => article(doc)

#set page(footer: none)

Hello world

This creates a 2 pages PDF. Removing either place(top, float: true, scope: "parent", clearance: 4mm, []) or #set page(footer: none) leads to a single page PDF.

On a related note, the template has changed recently, but this is not the source of the issue.

Edit: the issue likely comes from this commit that, I assume, updates Pandoc Typst template, as you mentionned?

[cscheid]

I think this is a fix for us to put in the first post-release patch, but I don't think I want us to diagnose and resolve before shipping 1.9.

[gordonwoodhull]

This generally happens if there is any content between two different #set page(...)

In this case, it's the title block, which becomes obvious if you set the title - the title lands on the first page, and then the rest of the content is on page 2.

Arguably the correct thing to do is put your #set page(...) in the document header:

  format:                                                                                                                                                                                 
    typst:                                                                                                                                                                              
      include-in-header:                                                                                                                                                                  
        text: |                                                                                                                                                                         
          #set page(footer: none)

because it belongs out of the body and with page stuff, and there isn't any possible content in between.

It's still a bug that we used to emit the title block conditionally and now emit it always. There's been a lot of churn on that one line in Pandoc and our templates in order to get layout of titles to work right with Typst's new improved column layout, and this got lost.

[cderv]

I opened issue upstream based also on your fix at #14219

• Typst template: unconditional title wrapper causes blank first page when body contains #set page() jgm/pandoc#11529

[cderv]

Fixed upstream in Pandoc already: jgm/pandoc@dc4bcd2