Page Break Issue with Long Lists in Callout Boxes for PDF Rendering

[produnis]

Description

I’m encountering an issue with long lists inside a callout box when rendering to PDF.

You can find a minimal example here: https://github.com/produnis/minimal_examples/tree/longlist.

The problem is that the content does not break across pages; instead, any content that reaches the page end is not displayed in the PDF output.

Is there a solution or workaround for this issue? I am rendering the document to HTML, EPUB, and PDF.

Tested with quarto 1.5.57 and 1.6.30

[mcanouil]

I'm not sure callout is the thing you want when it cannot be contained in one single page or when it's long.
I don't think it was thought initially to contain that much.

This being said, PDF (LaTeX) is very tricky regarding this particular type of problems. I'm not sure there is a fix.
One thing you could try is to investigate, on your end, the LaTeX code using keep-tex: true to tweak the output and compile it with xelatex, pdflates, etc.

Note that the content is displayed, it simply overflow the page.

[produnis]

here is my dirty hack:

I manually looked how many items would fit on the page without pagebreak. I split the callout-box at this number of items. Also, I wrapped a div called .custom-counter around the second callout-box

So it looks like this:

::: {.callout-note appearance="simple"}

a) first
b) second
c) ----
d) till it reaches end of page
:::

\newpage

::::{.custom-counter}
::: {.callout-note appearance="minimal"}
I changed to "minimal" here
e) continue
f) with
g) items
:::
::::

In LaTex, you cant see anything of this "hack". It just looks nice, and as I use a) b) c), the numbering is correct within the second callout-box.

In HTML (and epub), you can see the split of the callout-box, but as I use "minimal" for the second box, it is acceptable.
Also, to make the counter catch the correct numbering in the second box, I added to my CSS-file:

.custom-counter ol {
  list-style-type: none;
  counter-reset: list-counter 13;

.custom-counter ol > li {
  counter-increment: list-counter;
}

.custom-counter ol > li::before {
  content: counter(list-counter, lower-alpha) ". ";
}

The counter-reset: list-counter 13; makes the list start at the right "number" (which is n) in my case).

So, I can live with that...

[mcanouil]

You could probably instead use a Lua filter only for LaTeX, where you loop over the items in callout and insert page break.

[produnis]

50,- Euro for the nice guy creating this Lua filter, via paypal or gift card :-)

[produnis]

I was going to suggest Typst instead of PDF/LaTeX, but the issue remains nearly the same.

I tested around with typst these days, and I found that callout boxes are not breakable at all in typst format. Is there a specific reason why?

[mcanouil]

Likely because floats support is at its premise.
The next Typst (to be embedded in Quarto will improve floats in general).
Typst is pretty new and some of the features also depends on Pandoc supporting them first.

[produnis]

While stuck in German "Schienenersatzverkehr" (possibly the worst word you can hear), I experimented with keep-tex: true and manual PDF compilation.

I found that the minipage environment in callout boxes was preventing page breaks within long lists. Each callout box uses two minipage environments—one for the header and another for the body. By removing the second minipage...

\begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth - 5.5mm}

(my items, don’t remove these)

\end{minipage}

...everything renders perfectly.

The ideal solution would be to create a Lua filter that removes both \begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth - 5.5mm} and the corresponding \end{minipage}.

Tomorrow, I'll have Schienenersatzverkehr again, and maybe I'll get this filter done on my own..
:)
(but any help is highly appreciated)

[produnis]

I seem to have the wrong pattern

            local start_pattern = "\\begin%{minipage%}%[t%]%{\\textwidth - 5.5mm%}"
            local end_pattern = "\\end%{minipage%}"
            raw_el.text = raw_el.text:gsub(start_pattern, "")
            raw_el.text = raw_el.text:gsub(end_pattern, "")

this does not remove the minipage. Am I escaping the wrong way?

(see full script/exampe here https://github.com/produnis/minimal_examples/tree/longlist )

[produnis]

I think I might have an idea why my code is not working.
Lua filters only change Pandoc's AST representation of your document, i.e. before it is then converted to LaTeX. A Raw block filter will not act on Pandoc's LaTeX output, but only on Raw LaTeX blocks that are in the markdown itself.

So, my idea was to write a custom Lua writer. The writer would use pandoc.write to generate Pandoc's own LaTeX output (body only) and modify it with regular expressions or Lua patterns.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do this... ;/
See my updated script at https://github.com/produnis/minimal_examples/tree/longlist

[produnis]

I came up with a new dirty hack!

I've implemented a custom workaround to simulate a callout box in my Quarto project. Instead of using the built-in :::{callout} syntax, I created a new :::{.longlistcallout} class and added a Lua filter to style it for LaTeX and HTML output.

This looks just nice and works for me.

See https://github.com/produnis/minimal_examples/tree/longlist for the complete minimal example and my lua script.

[Steinthal]

FYI: Your minimal example works for me just with callout-note for PDF generation. I'm currently using Quarto 1.6.32 (RC for 1.6):

[produnis]

Thx for letting me know, good to hear it is fixed in future Version

[mcanouil]

FYI, 1.6.32 is a Release Candidate and is the default download on Quarto site.