Getting Started with Quartz

Quartz is a powerful static site generator designed specifically for creating digital gardens from your markdown notes. Here’s everything you need to know to get started!

What is Quartz?

Quartz v4 is a set of tools that helps you publish your digital garden and notes as a website. For those coming from Obsidian, it’s like a free, open-source alternative to Obsidian Publish.

Key Features

• 🔗 Bidirectional Links: Create connections between your notes with [[wiki-links]]
• 🔍 Full-text Search: Find content across your entire garden
• 📱 Mobile Responsive: Looks great on all devices
• ⚡ Fast Loading: Static site generation for optimal performance
• 🎨 Customizable: Themes, layouts, and components you can modify
• 📊 Graph View: Visualize connections between your notes

Installation

1. Prerequisites: Node.js (v18+) and Git
2. Clone: git clone https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz.git
3. Install: npm install
4. Create: npx quartz create
5. Build & Serve: npx quartz build --serve

Writing Content

Basic Markdown

All standard markdown syntax works:

• Headers with #
• Bold and italic text
• Lists and checkboxes
• Code blocks and inline code

Wiki Links

Link to other pages using double brackets:

• [[Page Name]] - links to “Page Name.md”
• [[Page Name|Custom Text]] - custom link text
• [[folder/Page Name]] - link to pages in subfolders

Tags

Use tags to categorize your content:

---
tags:
  - productivity
  - note-taking
  - digital-garden
---

Next Steps

• Explore Digital Gardening Philosophy
• Learn Markdown Tips and Tricks
• Check out the official documentation

Useful Commands

• npx quartz build - Build your site
• npx quartz build --serve - Build and serve locally
• npx quartz sync - Sync content changes
• npx quartz update - Update Quartz to latest version

Happy gardening! 🌱