Pandoc User’s Guide MANUAL
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Pandoc User’s Guide
John MacFarlane
November 25, 2018
1 Synopsis
2 Description
2.1 Using pandoc
2.2 Specifying formats
2.3 Character encoding
2.4 Creating a PDF
2.5 Reading from the Web
3 Options
3.1 General options
3.2 Reader options
3.3 General writer options
3.4 Options affecting specific writers
3.5 Citation rendering
3.6 Math rendering in HTML
3.7 Options for wrapper scripts
4 Templates
4.1 Variables set by pandoc
4.2 Language variables
4.3 Variables for slides
4.4 Variables for LaTeX
4.5 Variables for ConTeXt
4.6 Variables for man pages
4.7 Variables for ms
4.8 Using variables in templates
5 Extensions
5.1 Typography
5.2 Headers and sections
5.3 Math Input
5.4 Raw HTML/TeX
5.5 Literate Haskell support
5.6 Other extensions
6 Pandoc’s Markdown
6.1 Philosophy
6.2 Paragraphs
6.3 Headers
6.3.1 Setext-style headers
6.3.2 ATX-style headers
6.3.3 Header identifiers
6.4 Block quotations
6.5 Verbatim (code) blocks
6.5.1 Indented code blocks
6.5.2 Fenced code blocks
6.6 Line blocks
6.7 Lists
6.7.1 Bullet lists
6.7.2 Block content in list items
6.7.3 Ordered lists
6.7.4 Definition lists
6.7.5 Numbered example lists
6.7.6 Compact and loose lists
6.7.7 Ending a list
6.8 Horizontal rules
6.9 Tables
6.10 Metadata blocks
6.11 Backslash escapes
6.12 Inline formatting
6.12.1 Emphasis
6.12.2 Strikeout
6.12.3 Superscripts and subscripts
6.12.4 Verbatim
6.12.5 Small caps
6.13 Math
6.14 Raw HTML
6.14.1 Generic raw attribute
6.15 LaTeX macros
6.16 Links
6.16.1 Automatic links
6.16.2 Inline links
6.16.3 Reference links
6.16.4 Internal links
6.17 Images
6.18 Divs and Spans
6.19 Footnotes
6.20 Citations
6.21 Non-pandoc extensions
6.22 Markdown variants
7 Producing slide shows with pandoc
7.1 Structuring the slide show
7.2 Incremental lists
7.3 Inserting pauses
7.4 Styling the slides
7.5 Speaker notes
7.6 Columns
7.7 Frame attributes in beamer
7.8 Background in reveal.js and beamer
8 Creating EPUBs with pandoc
8.1 EPUB Metadata
8.2 The epub:type attribute
8.3 Linked media
9 Syntax highlighting
10 Custom Styles
10.1 Input
10.2 Output
11 Custom writers
12 A note on security
13 Authors
1 Synopsis
pandoc [options] [input-file]…
2 Description
Pandoc is a Haskell library for converting from one markup format to another, and a
command-line tool that uses this library.
Pandoc can convert between numerous markup and word processing formats, including, but
not limited to, various flavors of Markdown, HTML, LaTeX and Word docx. For the full lists of
input and output formats, see the --from and --to options below. Pandoc can also produce
PDF output: see creating a PDF, below.
Pandoc’s enhanced version of Markdown includes syntax for tables, definition lists, metadata
blocks, footnotes, citations, math, and much more. See below under Pandoc’s Markdown.
Pandoc has a modular design: it consists of a set of readers, which parse text in a given format
and produce a native representation of the document (an abstract syntax tree or AST), and a set
of writers, which convert this native representation into a target format. Thus, adding an input
or output format requires only adding a reader or writer. Users can also run custom pandoc
filters to modify the intermediate AST.
Because pandoc’s intermediate representation of a document is less expressive than many of
the formats it converts between, one should not expect perfect conversions between every
format and every other. Pandoc attempts to preserve the structural elements of a document,
but not formatting details such as margin size. And some document elements, such as complex
tables, may not fit into pandoc’s simple document model. While conversions from pandoc’s
Markdown to all formats aspire to be perfect, conversions from formats more expressive than
pandoc’s Markdown can be expected to be lossy.
2.1 Using pandoc
If no input-files are specified, input is read from stdin. Output goes to stdout by default. For
output to a file, use the -o option:
pandoc -o output.html input.txt
By default, pandoc produces a document fragment. To produce a standalone document (e.g. a
valid HTML file including and ), use the -s or --standalone flag:
pandoc -s -o output.html input.txt
For more information on how standalone documents are produced, see Templates below.
If multiple input files are given, pandoc will concatenate them all (with blank lines between
them) before parsing. (Use --file-scope to parse files individually.)
2.2 Specifying formats
The format of the input and output can be specified explicitly using command-line options. The
input format can be specified using the -f/--from option, the output format using the -t/--t
o option. Thus, to convert hello.txt from Markdown to LaTeX, you could type:
pandoc -f markdown -t latex hello.txt
To convert hello.html from HTML to Markdown:
pandoc -f html -t markdown hello.html
Supported input and output formats are listed below under Options (see -f for input formats
and -t for output formats). You can also use pandoc --list-input-formats and pandoc
--list-output-formats to print lists of supported formats.
If the input or output format is not specified explicitly, pandoc will attempt to guess it from the
extensions of the filenames. Thus, for example,
pandoc -o hello.tex hello.txt
will convert hello.txt from Markdown to LaTeX. If no output file is specified (so that output
goes to stdout), or if the output file’s extension is unknown, the output format will default to
HTML. If no input file is specified (so that input comes from stdin), or if the input files’
extensions are unknown, the input format will be assumed to be Markdown.
2.3 Character encoding
Pandoc uses the UTF-8 character encoding for both input and output. If your local character
encoding is not UTF-8, you should pipe input and output through iconv:
iconv -t utf-8 input.txt | pandoc | iconv -f utf-8
Note that in some output formats (such as HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, RTF, OPML, DocBook, and
Texinfo), information about the character encoding is included in the document header, which
will only be included if you use the -s/--standalone option.
2.4 Creating a PDF
To produce a PDF, specify an output file with a .pdf extension:
pandoc test.txt -o test.pdf
By default, pandoc will use LaTeX to create the PDF, which requires that a LaTeX engine be
installed (see --pdf-engine below).
Alternatively, pandoc can use ConTeXt, pdfroff, or any of the following HTML/CSS-to-PDFengines, to create a PDF: wkhtmltopdf, weasyprint or prince. To do this, specify an output
file with a .pdf extension, as before, but add the --pdf-engine option or -t context, -t h
tml, or -t ms to the command line (-t html defaults to --pdf-engine=wkhtmltopdf).
PDF output can be controlled using variables for LaTeX (if LaTeX is used) and variables for
ConTeXt (if ConTeXt is used). When using an HTML/CSS-to-PDF-engine, --css affects the
output. If wkhtmltopdf is used, then the variables margin-left, margin-right, margin-to
p, margin-bottom, footer-html, header-html and papersize will affect the output.
To debug the PDF creation, it can be useful to look at the intermediate representation: instead
of -o test.pdf, use for example -s -o test.tex to output the generated LaTeX. You can
then test it with pdflatex test.tex.
When using LaTeX, the following packages need to be available (they are included with all
recent versions of TeX Live): amsfonts, amsmath, lm, unicode-math, ifxetex, ifluatex, li
stings (if the --listings option is used), fancyvrb, longtable, booktabs, graphicx and
grffile (if the document contains images), hyperref, xcolor (with colorlinks), ulem, geo
metry (with the geometry variable set), setspace (with linestretch), and babel (with lan
g). The use of xelatex or lualatex as the LaTeX engine requires fontspec. xelatex uses po
lyglossia (with lang), xecjk, and bidi (with the dir variable set). If the mathspec variable
is set, xelatex will use mathspec instead of unicode-math. The upquote and microtype
packages are used if available, and csquotes will be used for typography if \usepackage{cs
quotes} is present in the template or included via /H/--include-in-header. The natbib, b
iblatex, bibtex, and biber packages can optionally be used for citation rendering.
2.5 Reading from the Web
Instead of an input file, an absolute URI may be given. In this case pandoc will fetch the content
using HTTP:
pandoc -f html -t markdown http://www.fsf.org
It is possible to supply a custom User-Agent string or other header when requesting a
document from a URL:
pandoc -f html -t markdown --request-header User-Agent:"Mozilla/5.0"
\
http://www.fsf.org
3 Options
3.1 General options
-f FORMAT, -r FORMAT, --from=FORMAT, --read=FORMAT
Specify input format. FORMAT can be:
commonmark (CommonMark Markdown)
creole (Creole 1.0)
docbook (DocBook)
docx (Word docx)
epub (EPUB)
fb2 (FictionBook2 e-book)
gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), or the deprecated and less accurate markdown_
github; use markdown_github only if you need extensions not supported in gfm.
haddock (Haddock markup)
html (HTML)
jats (JATS XML)
json (JSON version of native AST)
latex (LaTeX)
markdown (Pandoc’s Markdown)
markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)
markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown)
mediawiki (MediaWiki markup)
man (roff man)
muse (Muse)
native (native Haskell)
odt (ODT)
opml (OPML)
org (Emacs Org mode)
rst (reStructuredText)
t2t (txt2tags)
textile (Textile)
tikiwiki (TikiWiki markup)
twiki (TWiki markup)
vimwiki (Vimwiki)
Extensions can be individually enabled or disabled by appending +EXTENSION or -EXTEN
SION to the format name. See Extensions below, for a list of extensions and their names.
See --list-input-formats and --list-extensions, below.
-t FORMAT, -w FORMAT, --to=FORMAT, --write=FORMAT
Specify output format. FORMAT can be:
asciidoc (AsciiDoc)
beamer (LaTeX beamer slide show)
commonmark (CommonMark Markdown)
context (ConTeXt)
docbook or docbook4 (DocBook 4)
docbook5 (DocBook 5)
docx (Word docx)
dokuwiki (DokuWiki markup)
epub or epub3 (EPUB v3 book)
epub2 (EPUB v2)
fb2 (FictionBook2 e-book)
gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), or the deprecated and less accurate markdown_
github; use markdown_github only if you need extensions not supported in gfm.
haddock (Haddock markup)
html or html5 (HTML, i.e. HTML5/XHTML polyglot markup)
html4 (XHTML 1.0 Transitional)
icml (InDesign ICML)
jats (JATS XML)
json (JSON version of native AST)
latex (LaTeX)
man (roff man)
markdown (Pandoc’s Markdown)
markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)
markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown)
mediawiki (MediaWiki markup)
ms (roff ms)
muse (Muse),
native (native Haskell),
odt (OpenOffice text document)
opml (OPML)
opendocument (OpenDocument)
org (Emacs Org mode)
plain (plain text),
pptx (PowerPoint slide show)
rst (reStructuredText)
rtf (Rich Text Format)
texinfo (GNU Texinfo)
textile (Textile)
slideous (Slideous HTML and JavaScript slide show)
slidy (Slidy HTML and JavaScript slide show)
dzslides (DZSlides HTML5 + JavaScript slide show),
revealjs (reveal.js HTML5 + JavaScript slide show)
s5 (S5 HTML and JavaScript slide show)
tei (TEI Simple)
zimwiki (ZimWiki markup)
the path of a custom lua writer, see Custom writers below
Note that odt, docx, and epub output will not be directed to stdout unless forced with -o
-.
Extensions can be individually enabled or disabled by appending +EXTENSION or -EXTEN
SION to the format name. See Extensions below, for a list of extensions and their names.
See --list-output-formats and --list-extensions, below.
-o FILE, --output=FILE
Write output to FILE instead of stdout. If FILE is -, output will go to stdout, even if a nontextual format (docx, odt, epub2, epub3) is specified.
--data-dir=DIRECTORY
Specify the user data directory to search for pandoc data files. If this option is not
specified, the default user data directory will be used. This is, in UNIX:
$HOME/.pandoc
in Windows XP:
C:\Documents And Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\pandoc
and in Windows Vista or later:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\pandoc
You can find the default user data directory on your system by looking at the output of pa
ndoc --version. A reference.odt, reference.docx, epub.css, templates, slidy,
slideous, or s5 directory placed in this directory will override pandoc’s normal defaults.
--bash-completion
Generate a bash completion script. To enable bash completion with pandoc, add this to
your .bashrc:
eval "$(pandoc --bash-completion)"
--verbose
Give verbose debugging output. Currently this only has an effect with PDF output.
--quiet
Suppress warning messages.
--fail-if-warnings
Exit with error status if there are any warnings.
--log=FILE
Write log messages in machine-readable JSON format to FILE. All messages above
DEBUG level will be written, regardless of verbosity settings (--verbose, --quiet).
--list-input-formats
List supported input formats, one per line.
--list-output-formats
List supported output formats, one per line.
--list-extensions[=FORMAT]
List supported extensions, one per line, preceded by a + or - indicating whether it is
enabled by default in FORMAT. If FORMAT is not specified, defaults for pandoc’s
Markdown are given.
--list-highlight-languages
List supported languages for syntax highlighting, one per line.
--list-highlight-styles
List supported styles for syntax highlighting, one per line. See --highlight-style.
-v, --version
Print version.
-h, --help
Show usage message.
3.2 Reader options
--base-header-level=NUMBER
Specify the base level for headers (defaults to 1).
--strip-empty-paragraphs
Deprecated. Use the +empty_paragraphs extension instead. Ignore paragraphs with no
content. This option is useful for converting word processing documents where users
have used empty paragraphs to create inter-paragraph space.
--indented-code-classes=CLASSES
Specify classes to use for indented code blocks–for example, perl,numberLines or has
kell. Multiple classes may be separated by spaces or commas.
--default-image-extension=EXTENSION
Specify a default extension to use when image paths/URLs have no extension. This allows
you to use the same source for formats that require different kinds of images. Currently
this option only affects the Markdown and LaTeX readers.
--file-scope
Parse each file individually before combining for multifile documents. This will allow
footnotes in different files with the same identifiers to work as expected. If this option is
set, footnotes and links will not work across files. Reading binary files (docx, odt, epub)
implies --file-scope.
-F PROGRAM, --filter=PROGRAM
Specify an executable to be used as a filter transforming the pandoc AST after the input is
parsed and before the output is written. The executable should read JSON from stdin and
write JSON to stdout. The JSON must be formatted like pandoc’s own JSON input and
output. The name of the output format will be passed to the filter as the first argument.
Hence,
pandoc --filter ./caps.py -t latex
is equivalent to
pandoc -t json | ./caps.py latex | pandoc -f json -t latex
The latter form may be useful for debugging filters.
Filters may be written in any language. Text.Pandoc.JSON exports toJSONFilter to
facilitate writing filters in Haskell. Those who would prefer to write filters in python can
use the module pandocfilters, installable from PyPI. There are also pandoc filter
libraries in PHP, perl, and JavaScript/node.js.
In order of preference, pandoc will look for filters in
1. a specified full or relative path (executable or non-executable)
2. $DATADIR/filters (executable or non-executable) where $DATADIR is the user
data directory (see --data-dir, above).
3. $PATH (executable only)
Filters and lua-filters are applied in the order specified on the command line.
--lua-filter=SCRIPT
Transform the document in a similar fashion as JSON filters (see --filter), but use
pandoc’s build-in lua filtering system. The given lua script is expected to return a list of
lua filters which will be applied in order. Each lua filter must contain elementtransforming functions indexed by the name of the AST element on which the filter
function should be applied.
The pandoc lua module provides helper functions for element creation. It is always
loaded into the script’s lua environment.
The following is an example lua script for macro-expansion:
function expand_hello_world(inline)
if inline.c == '{{helloworld}}' then
return pandoc.Emph{ pandoc.Str "Hello, World" }
else
return inline
end
end
return {{Str = expand_hello_world}}
In order of preference, pandoc will look for lua filters in
1. a specified full or relative path (executable or non-executable)
2. $DATADIR/filters (executable or non-executable) where $DATADIR is the user
data directory (see --data-dir, above).
-M KEY[=VAL], --metadata=KEY[:VAL]
Set the metadata field KEY to the value VAL. A value specified on the command line
overrides a value specified in the document using YAML metadata blocks. Values will be
parsed as YAML boolean or string values. If no value is specified, the value will be treated
as Boolean true. Like --variable, --metadata causes template variables to be set. But
unlike --variable, --metadata affects the metadata of the underlying document
(which is accessible from filters and may be printed in some output formats) and
metadata values will be escaped when inserted into the template.
--metadata-file=FILE
Read metadata from the supplied YAML (or JSON) file. This option can be used with every
input format, but string scalars in the YAML file will always be parsed as Markdown.
Generally, the input will be handled the same as in YAML metadata blocks. Metadata
values specified inside the document, or by using -M, overwrite values specified with this
option.
-p, --preserve-tabs
Preserve tabs instead of converting them to spaces (the default). Note that this will only
affect tabs in literal code spans and code blocks; tabs in regular text will be treated as
spaces.
--tab-stop=NUMBER
Specify the number of spaces per tab (default is 4).
--track-changes=accept|reject|all
Specifies what to do with insertions, deletions, and comments produced by the MS Word
“Track Changes” feature. accept (the default), inserts all insertions, and ignores all
deletions. reject inserts all deletions and ignores insertions. Both accept and reject
ignore comments. all puts in insertions, deletions, and comments, wrapped in spans
with insertion, deletion, comment-start, and comment-end classes, respectively.
The author and time of change is included. all is useful for scripting: only accepting
changes from a certain reviewer, say, or before a certain date. If a paragraph is inserted or
deleted, track-changes=all produces a span with the class paragraph-insertion/p
aragraph-deletion before the affected paragraph break. This option only affects the
docx reader.
--extract-media=DIR
Extract images and other media contained in or linked from the source document to the
path DIR, creating it if necessary, and adjust the images references in the document so
they point to the extracted files. If the source format is a binary container (docx, epub, or
odt), the media is extracted from the container and the original filenames are used.
Otherwise the media is read from the file system or downloaded, and new filenames are
constructed based on SHA1 hashes of the contents.
--abbreviations=FILE
Specifies a custom abbreviations file, with abbreviations one to a line. If this option is not
specified, pandoc will read the data file abbreviations from the user data directory or
fall back on a system default. To see the system default, use pandoc --print-default
-data-file=abbreviations. The only use pandoc makes of this list is in the
Markdown reader. Strings ending in a period that are found in this list will be followed by
a nonbreaking space, so that the period will not produce sentence-ending space in
formats like LaTeX.
3.3 General writer options
-s, --standalone
Produce output with an appropriate header and footer (e.g. a standalone HTML, LaTeX,
TEI, or RTF file, not a fragment). This option is set automatically for pdf, epub, epub3, fb2,
docx, and odt output. For native output, this option causes metadata to be included;
otherwise, metadata is suppressed.
--template=FILE|URL
Use the specified file as a custom template for the generated document. Implies --stand
alone. See Templates, below, for a description of template syntax. If no extension is
specified, an extension corresponding to the writer will be added, so that --template=s
pecial looks for special.html for HTML output. If the template is not found, pandoc
will search for it in the templates subdirectory of the user data directory (see --data-d
ir). If this option is not used, a default template appropriate for the output format will be
used (see -D/--print-default-template).
-V KEY[=VAL], --variable=KEY[:VAL]
Set the template variable KEY to the value VAL when rendering the document in
standalone mode. This is generally only useful when the --template option is used to
specify a custom template, since pandoc automatically sets the variables used in the
default templates. If no VAL is specified, the key will be given the value true.
-D FORMAT, --print-default-template=FORMAT
Print the system default template for an output FORMAT. (See -t for a list of possible
FORMATs.) Templates in the user data directory are ignored.
--print-default-data-file=FILE
Print a system default data file. Files in the user data directory are ignored.
--eol=crlf|lf|native
Manually specify line endings: crlf (Windows), lf (macOS/Linux/UNIX), or native (line
endings appropriate to the OS on which pandoc is being run). The default is native.
--dpi=NUMBER
Specify the dpi (dots per inch) value for conversion from pixels to inch/centimeters and
vice versa. The default is 96dpi. Technically, the correct term would be ppi (pixels per
inch).
--wrap=auto|none|preserve
Determine how text is wrapped in the output (the source code, not the rendered version).
With auto (the default), pandoc will attempt to wrap lines to the column width specified
by --columns (default 72). With none, pandoc will not wrap lines at all. With preserve,
pandoc will attempt to preserve the wrapping from the source document (that is, where
there are nonsemantic newlines in the source, there will be nonsemantic newlines in the
output as well). Automatic wrapping does not currently work in HTML output.
--columns=NUMBER
Specify length of lines in characters. This affects text wrapping in the generated source
code (see --wrap). It also affects calculation of column widths for plain text tables (see
Tables below).
--toc, --table-of-contents
Include an automatically generated table of contents (or, in the case of latex, context, d
ocx, odt, opendocument, rst, or ms, an instruction to create one) in the output
document. This option has no effect unless -s/--standalone is used, and it has no
effect on man, docbook4, docbook5, or jats output.
--toc-depth=NUMBER
Specify the number of section levels to include in the table of contents. The default is 3
(which means that level 1, 2, and 3 headers will be listed in the contents).
--strip-comments
Strip out HTML comments in the Markdown or Textile source, rather than passing them
on to Markdown, Textile or HTML output as raw HTML. This does not apply to HTML
comments inside raw HTML blocks when the markdown_in_html_blocks extension is
not set.
--no-highlight
Disables syntax highlighting for code blocks and inlines, even when a language attribute
is given.
--highlight-style=STYLE|FILE
Specifies the coloring style to be used in highlighted source code. Options are pygments
(the default), kate, monochrome, breezeDark, espresso, zenburn, haddock, and tang
o. For more information on syntax highlighting in pandoc, see Syntax highlighting, below.
See also --list-highlight-styles.
Instead of a STYLE name, a JSON file with extension .theme may be supplied. This will be
parsed as a KDE syntax highlighting theme and (if valid) used as the highlighting style.
To generate the JSON version of an existing style, use --print-highlight-style.
--print-highlight-style=STYLE|FILE
Prints a JSON version of a highlighting style, which can be modified, saved with a .theme
extension, and used with --highlight-style.
--syntax-definition=FILE
Instructs pandoc to load a KDE XML syntax definition file, which will be used for syntax
highlighting of appropriately marked code blocks. This can be used to add support for
new languages or to use altered syntax definitions for existing languages.
-H FILE, --include-in-header=FILE
Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the end of the header. This can be used, for example,
to include special CSS or JavaScript in HTML documents. This option can be used
repeatedly to include multiple files in the header. They will be included in the order
specified. Implies --standalone.
-B FILE, --include-before-body=FILE
Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the beginning of the document body (e.g. after the <
body> tag in HTML, or the \begin{document} command in LaTeX). This can be used to
include navigation bars or banners in HTML documents. This option can be used
repeatedly to include multiple files. They will be included in the order specified. Implies -standalone.
-A FILE, --include-after-body=FILE
Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the end of the document body (before the
tag in HTML, or the \end{document} command in LaTeX). This option can be used
repeatedly to include multiple files. They will be included in the order specified. Implies -standalone.
--resource-path=SEARCHPATH
List of paths to search for images and other resources. The paths should be separated by
: on Linux, UNIX, and macOS systems, and by ; on Windows. If --resource-path is not
specified, the default resource path is the working directory. Note that, if --resource-pa
th is specified, the working directory must be explicitly listed or it will not be searched.
For example: --resource-path=.:test will search the working directory and the test
subdirectory, in that order.
--resource-path only has an effect if (a) the output format embeds images (for
example, docx, pdf, or html with --self-contained) or (b) it is used together with --e
xtract-media.
--request-header=NAME:VAL
Set the request header NAME to the value VAL when making HTTP requests (for example,
when a URL is given on the command line, or when resources used in a document must
be downloaded). If you’re behind a proxy, you also need to set the environment variable h
ttp_proxy to http://....
3.4 Options affecting specific writers
--self-contained
Produce a standalone HTML file with no external dependencies, using data: URIs to
incorporate the contents of linked scripts, stylesheets, images, and videos. Implies --stan
dalone. The resulting file should be “self-contained,” in the sense that it needs no
external files and no net access to be displayed properly by a browser. This option works
only with HTML output formats, including html4, html5, html+lhs, html5+lhs, s5, sli
dy, slideous, dzslides, and revealjs. Scripts, images, and stylesheets at absolute
URLs will be downloaded; those at relative URLs will be sought relative to the working
directory (if the first source file is local) or relative to the base URL (if the first source file
is remote). Elements with the attribute data-external="1" will be left alone; the
documents they link to will not be incorporated in the document. Limitation: resources
that are loaded dynamically through JavaScript cannot be incorporated; as a result, --sel
f-contained does not work with --mathjax, and some advanced features (e.g. zoom
or speaker notes) may not work in an offline “self-contained” reveal.js slide show.
--html-q-tags
Use tags for quotes in HTML.
--ascii
Use only ASCII characters in output. Currently supported for XML and HTML formats
(which use entities instead of UTF-8 when this option is selected), CommonMark, gfm,
and Markdown (which use entities), roff ms (which use hexadecimal escapes), and to a
limited degree LaTeX (which uses standard commands for accented characters when
possible). roff man output uses ASCII by default.
--reference-links
Use reference-style links, rather than inline links, in writing Markdown or
reStructuredText. By default inline links are used. The placement of link references is
affected by the --reference-location option.
--reference-location = block|section|document
Specify whether footnotes (and references, if reference-links is set) are placed at the
end of the current (top-level) block, the current section, or the document. The default is do
cument. Currently only affects the markdown writer.
--atx-headers
Use ATX-style headers in Markdown output. The default is to use setext-style headers for
levels 1-2, and then ATX headers. (Note: for gfm output, ATX headers are always used.)
--top-level-division=[default|section|chapter|part]
Treat top-level headers as the given division type in LaTeX, ConTeXt, DocBook, and TEI
output. The hierarchy order is part, chapter, then section; all headers are shifted such that
the top-level header becomes the specified type. The default behavior is to determine the
best division type via heuristics: unless other conditions apply, section is chosen. When
the LaTeX document class is set to report, book, or memoir (unless the article option
is specified), chapter is implied as the setting for this option. If beamer is the output
format, specifying either chapter or part will cause top-level headers to become \part
{..}, while second-level headers remain as their default type.
-N, --number-sections
Number section headings in LaTeX, ConTeXt, HTML, or EPUB output. By default, sections
are not numbered. Sections with class unnumbered will never be numbered, even if --nu
mber-sections is specified.
--number-offset=NUMBER[,NUMBER,…]
Offset for section headings in HTML output (ignored in other output formats). The first
number is added to the section number for top-level headers, the second for second-level
headers, and so on. So, for example, if you want the first top-level header in your
document to be numbered “6”, specify --number-offset=5. If your document starts
with a level-2 header which you want to be numbered “1.5”, specify --number-offset=
1,4. Offsets are 0 by default. Implies --number-sections.
--listings
Use the listings package for LaTeX code blocks. The package does not support multibyte encoding for source code. To handle UTF-8 you would need to use a custom
template. This issue is fully documented here: Encoding issue with the listings package.
-i, --incremental
Make list items in slide shows display incrementally (one by one). The default is for lists to
be displayed all at once.
--slide-level=NUMBER
Specifies that headers with the specified level create slides (for beamer, s5, slidy, slide
ous, dzslides). Headers above this level in the hierarchy are used to divide the slide
show into sections; headers below this level create subheads within a slide. Note that
content that is not contained under slide-level headers will not appear in the slide show.
The default is to set the slide level based on the contents of the document; see Structuring
the slide show.
--section-divs
Wrap sections in tags (or tags for html4), and attach identifiers to the
enclosing (or ) rather than the header itself. See Header identifiers,
below.
--email-obfuscation=none|javascript|references
Specify a method for obfuscating mailto: links in HTML documents. none leaves mailt
o: links as they are. javascript obfuscates them using JavaScript. references
obfuscates them by printing their letters as decimal or hexadecimal character references.
The default is none.
--id-prefix=STRING
Specify a prefix to be added to all identifiers and internal links in HTML and DocBook
output, and to footnote numbers in Markdown and Haddock output. This is useful for
preventing duplicate identifiers when generating fragments to be included in other pages.
-T STRING, --title-prefix=STRING
Specify STRING as a prefix at the beginning of the title that appears in the HTML header
(but not in the title as it appears at the beginning of the HTML body). Implies --standal
one.
-c URL, --css=URL
Link to a CSS style sheet. This option can be used repeatedly to include multiple files.
They will be included in the order specified.
A stylesheet is required for generating EPUB. If none is provided using this option (or the
css or stylesheet metadata fields), pandoc will look for a file epub.css in the user
data directory (see --data-dir). If it is not found there, sensible defaults will be used.
--reference-doc=FILE
Use the specified file as a style reference in producing a docx or ODT file.
Docx
For best results, the reference docx should be a modified version of a docx file
produced using pandoc. The contents of the reference docx are ignored, but its
stylesheets and document properties (including margins, page size, header, and
footer) are used in the new docx. If no reference docx is specified on the command
line, pandoc will look for a file reference.docx in the user data directory (see --d
ata-dir). If this is not found either, sensible defaults will be used.
To produce a custom reference.docx, first get a copy of the default reference.
docx: pandoc --print-default-data-file reference.docx > custom-re
ference.docx. Then open custom-reference.docx in Word, modify the styles
as you wish, and save the file. For best results, do not make changes to this file
other than modifying the styles used by pandoc: [paragraph] Normal, Body Text,
First Paragraph, Compact, Title, Subtitle, Author, Date, Abstract, Bibliography,
Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Heading 4, Heading 5, Heading 6, Heading 7,
Heading 8, Heading 9, Block Text, Footnote Text, Definition Term, Definition,
Caption, Table Caption, Image Caption, Figure, Captioned Figure, TOC Heading;
[character] Default Paragraph Font, Body Text Char, Verbatim Char, Footnote
Reference, Hyperlink; [table] Table.
ODT
For best results, the reference ODT should be a modified version of an ODT
produced using pandoc. The contents of the reference ODT are ignored, but its
stylesheets are used in the new ODT. If no reference ODT is specified on the
command line, pandoc will look for a file reference.odt in the user data directory
(see --data-dir). If this is not found either, sensible defaults will be used.
To produce a custom reference.odt, first get a copy of the default reference.o
dt: pandoc --print-default-data-file reference.odt > custom-refer
ence.odt. Then open custom-reference.odt in LibreOffice, modify the styles as
you wish, and save the file.
PowerPoint
Any template included with a recent install of Microsoft PowerPoint (either with .pp
tx or .potx extension) should work, as will most templates derived from these.
The specific requirement is that the template should contain the following four
layouts as its first four layouts:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Title Slide
Title and Content
Section Header
Two Content
All templates included with a recent version of MS PowerPoint will fit these criteria.
(You can click on Layout under the Home menu to check.)
You can also modify the default reference.pptx: first run pandoc --print-def
ault-data-file reference.pptx > custom-reference.pptx, and then
modify custom-reference.pptx in MS PowerPoint (pandoc will use the first four
layout slides, as mentioned above).
--epub-cover-image=FILE
Use the specified image as the EPUB cover. It is recommended that the image be less than
1000px in width and height. Note that in a Markdown source document you can also
specify cover-image in a YAML metadata block (see EPUB Metadata, below).
--epub-metadata=FILE
Look in the specified XML file for metadata for the EPUB. The file should contain a series
of Dublin Core elements. For example:
Creative Commons
es-AR
By default, pandoc will include the following metadata elements: (from the
document title), (from the document authors), (from the
document date, which should be in ISO 8601 format), (from the lang
variable, or, if is not set, the locale), and (a randomly
generated UUID). Any of these may be overridden by elements in the metadata file.
Note: if the source document is Markdown, a YAML metadata block in the document can
be used instead. See below under EPUB Metadata.
--epub-embed-font=FILE
Embed the specified font in the EPUB. This option can be repeated to embed multiple
fonts. Wildcards can also be used: for example, DejaVuSans-*.ttf. However, if you use
wildcards on the command line, be sure to escape them or put the whole filename in
single quotes, to prevent them from being interpreted by the shell. To use the embedded
fonts, you will need to add declarations like the following to your CSS (see --css):
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Regular.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;
src:url("DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf");
}
body { font-family: "DejaVuSans"; }
--epub-chapter-level=NUMBER
Specify the header level at which to split the EPUB into separate “chapter” files. The
default is to split into chapters at level 1 headers. This option only affects the internal
composition of the EPUB, not the way chapters and sections are displayed to users. Some
readers may be slow if the chapter files are too large, so for large documents with few
level 1 headers, one might want to use a chapter level of 2 or 3.
--epub-subdirectory=DIRNAME
Specify the subdirectory in the OCF container that is to hold the EPUB-specific contents.
The default is EPUB. To put the EPUB contents in the top level, use an empty string.
--pdf-engine=pdflatex|lualatex|xelatex|wkhtmltopdf|weasyprint|prince|context|
pdfroff
Use the specified engine when producing PDF output. The default is pdflatex. If the
engine is not in your PATH, the full path of the engine may be specified here.
--pdf-engine-opt=STRING
Use the given string as a command-line argument to the pdf-engine. If used multiple
times, the arguments are provided with spaces between them. Note that no check for
duplicate options is done.
3.5 Citation rendering
--bibliography=FILE
Set the bibliography field in the document’s metadata to FILE, overriding any value set
in the metadata, and process citations using pandoc-citeproc. (This is equivalent to -metadata bibliography=FILE --filter pandoc-citeproc.) If --natbib or --bi
blatex is also supplied, pandoc-citeproc is not used, making this equivalent to --met
adata bibliography=FILE. If you supply this argument multiple times, each FILE will
be added to bibliography.
--csl=FILE
Set the csl field in the document’s metadata to FILE, overriding any value set in the
metadata. (This is equivalent to --metadata csl=FILE.) This option is only relevant
with pandoc-citeproc.
--citation-abbreviations=FILE
Set the citation-abbreviations field in the document’s metadata to FILE, overriding
any value set in the metadata. (This is equivalent to --metadata citation-abbreviat
ions=FILE.) This option is only relevant with pandoc-citeproc.
--natbib
Use natbib for citations in LaTeX output. This option is not for use with the pandoc-cit
eproc filter or with PDF output. It is intended for use in producing a LaTeX file that can be
processed with bibtex.
--biblatex
Use biblatex for citations in LaTeX output. This option is not for use with the pandoc-c
iteproc filter or with PDF output. It is intended for use in producing a LaTeX file that can
be processed with bibtex or biber.
3.6 Math rendering in HTML
The default is to render TeX math as far as possible using Unicode characters. Formulas are put
inside a span with class="math", so that they may be styled differently from the surrounding
text if needed. However, this gives acceptable results only for basic math, usually you will want
to use --mathjax or another of the following options.
--mathjax[=URL]
Use MathJax to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. TeX math will be put
between \(...\) (for inline math) or \[...\] (for display math) and wrapped in tags with class math. Then the MathJax JavaScript will render it. The URL should point to
the MathJax.js load script. If a URL is not provided, a link to the Cloudflare CDN will be
inserted.
--mathml
Convert TeX math to MathML (in epub3, docbook4, docbook5, jats, html4 and html5).
This is the default in odt output. Note that currently only Firefox and Safari (and select ebook readers) natively support MathML.
--webtex[=URL]
Convert TeX formulas to ![]()
tags that link to an external script that converts formulas
to images. The formula will be URL-encoded and concatenated with the URL provided.
For SVG images you can for example use --webtex https://latex.codecogs.com/
svg.latex?. If no URL is specified, the CodeCogs URL generating PNGs will be used (ht
tps://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?). Note: the --webtex option will affect
Markdown output as well as HTML, which is useful if you’re targeting a version of
Markdown without native math support.
--katex[=URL]
Use KaTeX to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL is the base URL for
the KaTeX library. That directory should contain a katex.min.js and a katex.min.css
file. If a URL is not provided, a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted.
--gladtex
Enclose TeX math in tags in HTML output. The resulting HTML can then be
processed by GladTeX to produce images of the typeset formulas and an HTML file with
links to these images. So, the procedure is:
pandoc -s --gladtex input.md -o myfile.htex
gladtex -d myfile-images myfile.htex
# produces myfile.html and images in myfile-images
3.7 Options for wrapper scripts
--dump-args
Print information about command-line arguments to stdout, then exit. This option is
intended primarily for use in wrapper scripts. The first line of output contains the name of
the output file specified with the -o option, or - (for stdout) if no output file was specified.
The remaining lines contain the command-line arguments, one per line, in the order they
appear. These do not include regular pandoc options and their arguments, but do include
any options appearing after a -- separator at the end of the line.
--ignore-args
Ignore command-line arguments (for use in wrapper scripts). Regular pandoc options are
not ignored. Thus, for example,
pandoc --ignore-args -o foo.html -s foo.txt -- -e latin1
is equivalent to
pandoc -o foo.html -s
4 Templates
When the -s/--standalone option is used, pandoc uses a template to add header and footer
material that is needed for a self-standing document. To see the default template that is used,
just type
pandoc -D *FORMAT*
where FORMAT is the name of the output format. A custom template can be specified using the
--template option. You can also override the system default templates for a given output
format FORMAT by putting a file templates/default.*FORMAT* in the user data directory
(see --data-dir, above). Exceptions:
For odt output, customize the default.opendocument template.
For pdf output, customize the default.latex template (or the default.context
template, if you use -t context, or the default.ms template, if you use -t ms, or the
default.html template, if you use -t html).
docx has no template (however, you can use --reference-doc to customize the
output).
Templates contain variables, which allow for the inclusion of arbitrary information at any point
in the file. They may be set at the command line using the -V/--variable option. If a variable
is not set, pandoc will look for the key in the document’s metadata – which can be set using
either YAML metadata blocks or with the --metadata option.
4.1 Variables set by pandoc
Some variables are set automatically by pandoc. These vary somewhat depending on the
output format, but include the following:
sourcefile, outputfile
source and destination filenames, as given on the command line. sourcefile can also
be a list if input comes from multiple files, or empty if input is from stdin. You can use the
following snippet in your template to distinguish them:
$if(sourcefile)$
$for(sourcefile)$
$sourcefile$
$endfor$
$else$
(stdin)
$endif$
Similarly, outputfile can be - if output goes to the terminal.
title, author, date
allow identification of basic aspects of the document. Included in PDF metadata through
LaTeX and ConTeXt. These can be set through a pandoc title block, which allows for
multiple authors, or through a YAML metadata block:
--author:
- Aristotle
- Peter Abelard
...
subtitle
document subtitle, included in HTML, EPUB, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and Word docx; renders in
LaTeX only when using a document class that supports \subtitle, such as beamer or
1
the KOMA-Script series (scrartcl, scrreprt, scrbook).
institute
author affiliations (in LaTeX and Beamer only). Can be a list, when there are multiple
authors.
abstract
document summary, included in LaTeX, ConTeXt, AsciiDoc, and Word docx
keywords
list of keywords to be included in HTML, PDF, and AsciiDoc metadata; may be repeated as
for author, above
header-includes
contents specified by -H/--include-in-header (may have multiple values)
toc
non-null value if --toc/--table-of-contents was specified
toc-title
title of table of contents (works only with EPUB, opendocument, odt, docx, pptx, beamer,
LaTeX)
include-before
contents specified by -B/--include-before-body (may have multiple values)
include-after
contents specified by -A/--include-after-body (may have multiple values)
body
body of document
meta-json
JSON representation of all of the document’s metadata. Field values are transformed to
the selected output format.
4.2 Language variables
lang
identifies the main language of the document, using a code according to BCP 47 (e.g. en
or en-GB). For some output formats, pandoc will convert it to an appropriate format
stored in the additional variables babel-lang, polyglossia-lang (LaTeX) and contex
t-lang (ConTeXt).
Native pandoc Spans and Divs with the lang attribute (value in BCP 47) can be used to
switch the language in that range. In LaTeX output, babel-otherlangs and polygloss
ia-otherlangs variables will be generated automatically based on the lang attributes
of Spans and Divs in the document.
dir
the base direction of the document, either rtl (right-to-left) or ltr (left-to-right).
For bidirectional documents, native pandoc spans and divs with the dir attribute (value
rtl or ltr) can be used to override the base direction in some output formats. This may
not always be necessary if the final renderer (e.g. the browser, when generating HTML)
supports the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
When using LaTeX for bidirectional documents, only the xelatex engine is fully
supported (use --pdf-engine=xelatex).
4.3 Variables for slides
Variables are available for producing slide shows with pandoc, including all reveal.js
configuration options.
titlegraphic
title graphic for Beamer documents
logo
logo for Beamer documents
slidy-url
base URL for Slidy documents (defaults to https://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy
2)
slideous-url
base URL for Slideous documents (defaults to slideous)
s5-url
base URL for S5 documents (defaults to s5/default)
revealjs-url
base URL for reveal.js documents (defaults to reveal.js)
theme, colortheme, fonttheme, innertheme, outertheme
themes for LaTeX beamer documents
themeoptions
options for LaTeX beamer themes (a list).
navigation
controls navigation symbols in beamer documents (default is empty for no navigation
symbols; other valid values are frame, vertical, and horizontal).
section-titles
enables on “title pages” for new sections in beamer documents (default = true).
beamerarticle
when true, the beamerarticle package is loaded (for producing an article from beamer
slides).
aspectratio
aspect ratio of slides (for beamer only, 1610 for 16:10, 169 for 16:9, 149 for 14:9, 141 for
1.41:1, 54 for 5:4, 43 for 4:3 which is the default, and 32 for 3:2).
4.4 Variables for LaTeX
LaTeX variables are used when creating a PDF.
papersize
paper size, e.g. letter, a4
fontsize
font size for body text (e.g. 10pt, 12pt)
documentclass
document class, e.g. article, report, book, memoir
classoption
option for document class, e.g. oneside; may be repeated for multiple options
beameroption
In beamer, add extra beamer option with \setbeameroption{}
geometry
option for geometry package, e.g. margin=1in; may be repeated for multiple options
margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom
sets margins, if geometry is not used (otherwise geometry overrides these)
linestretch
adjusts line spacing using the setspace package, e.g. 1.25, 1.5
fontfamily
font package for use with pdflatex: TeX Live includes many options, documented in the
LaTeX Font Catalogue. The default is Latin Modern.
fontfamilyoptions
options for package used as fontfamily: e.g. osf,sc with fontfamily set to mathpaz
o provides Palatino with old-style figures and true small caps; may be repeated for
multiple options
mainfont, romanfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJKmainfont
font families for use with xelatex or lualatex: take the name of any system font, using
the fontspec package. Note that if CJKmainfont is used, the xecjk package must be
available.
mainfontoptions, romanfontoptions, sansfontoptions, monofontoptions, mathfonto
ptions, CJKoptions
options to use with mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJKmainfont in xelat
ex and lualatex. Allow for any choices available through fontspec, such as the
OpenType features Numbers=OldStyle,Numbers=Proportional. May be repeated for
multiple options.
fontenc
allows font encoding to be specified through fontenc package (with pdflatex); default
is T1 (see guide to LaTeX font encodings)
microtypeoptions
options to pass to the microtype package
colorlinks
add color to link text; automatically enabled if any of linkcolor, filecolor, citecolo
r, urlcolor, or toccolor are set
linkcolor, filecolor, citecolor, urlcolor, toccolor
color for internal links, external links, citation links, linked URLs, and links in table of
contents, respectively: uses options allowed by xcolor, including the dvipsnames, svgn
ames, and x11names lists
links-as-notes
causes links to be printed as footnotes
indent
uses document class settings for indentation (the default LaTeX template otherwise
removes indentation and adds space between paragraphs)
subparagraph
disables default behavior of LaTeX template that redefines (sub)paragraphs as sections,
changing the appearance of nested headings in some classes
thanks
specifies contents of acknowledgments footnote after document title.
toc
include table of contents (can also be set using --toc/--table-of-contents)
toc-depth
level of section to include in table of contents
secnumdepth
numbering depth for sections, if sections are numbered
lof, lot
include list of figures, list of tables
bibliography
bibliography to use for resolving references
biblio-style
bibliography style, when used with --natbib and --biblatex.
biblio-title
bibliography title, when used with --natbib and --biblatex.
biblatexoptions
list of options for biblatex.
natbiboptions
list of options for natbib.
pagestyle
An option for LaTeX’s \pagestyle{}. The default article class supports ‘plain’ (default),
‘empty’, and ‘headings’; headings puts section titles in the header.
4.5 Variables for ConTeXt
papersize
paper size, e.g. letter, A4, landscape (see ConTeXt Paper Setup); may be repeated for
multiple options
layout
options for page margins and text arrangement (see ConTeXt Layout); may be repeated
for multiple options
margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom
sets margins, if layout is not used (otherwise layout overrides these)
fontsize
font size for body text (e.g. 10pt, 12pt)
mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont
font families: take the name of any system font (see ConTeXt Font Switching)
linkcolor, contrastcolor
color for links outside and inside a page, e.g. red, blue (see ConTeXt Color)
linkstyle
typeface style for links, e.g. normal, bold, slanted, boldslanted, type, cap, small
indenting
controls indentation of paragraphs, e.g. yes,small,next (see ConTeXt Indentation); may
be repeated for multiple options
whitespace
spacing between paragraphs, e.g. none, small (using setupwhitespace)
interlinespace
adjusts line spacing, e.g. 4ex (using setupinterlinespace); may be repeated for
multiple options
headertext, footertext
text to be placed in running header or footer (see ConTeXt Headers and Footers); may be
repeated up to four times for different placement
pagenumbering
page number style and location (using setuppagenumbering); may be repeated for
multiple options
toc
include table of contents (can also be set using --toc/--table-of-contents)
lof, lot
include list of figures, list of tables
pdfa
adds to the preamble the setup necessary to generate PDF/A-1b:2005. To successfully
generate PDF/A the required ICC color profiles have to be available and the content and
all included files (such as images) have to be standard conforming. The ICC profiles can
be obtained from ConTeXt ICC Profiles. See also ConTeXt PDFA for more details.
4.6 Variables for man pages
section
section number in man pages
header
header in man pages
footer
footer in man pages
adjusting
adjusts text to left (l), right (r), center (c), or both (b) margins
hyphenate
if true (the default), hyphenation will be used
4.7 Variables for ms
pointsize
point size (e.g. 10p)
lineheight
line height (e.g. 12p)
fontfamily
font family (e.g. T or P)
indent
paragraph indent (e.g. 2m)
4.8 Using variables in templates
Variable names are sequences of alphanumerics, -, and _, starting with a letter. A variable
name surrounded by $ signs will be replaced by its value. For example, the string $title$ in
$title$
will be replaced by the document title.
To write a literal $ in a template, use $$.
Templates may contain conditionals. The syntax is as follows:
$if(variable)$
X
$else$
Y
$endif$
This will include X in the template if variable has a truthy value; otherwise it will include Y.
Here a truthy value is any of the following:
a string that is not entirely white space,
a non-empty array where the first value is truthy,
any number (including zero),
any object,
the boolean true (to specify the boolean true value using YAML metadata or the --met
adata flag, use true, True, or TRUE; with the --variable flag, simply omit a value for
the variable, e.g. --variable draft).
X and Y are placeholders for any valid template text, and may include interpolated variables or
other conditionals. The $else$ section may be omitted.
When variables can have multiple values (for example, author in a multi-author document),
you can use the $for$ keyword:
$for(author)$
$endfor$
You can optionally specify a separator to be used between consecutive items:
$for(author)$$author$$sep$, $endfor$
A dot can be used to select a field of a variable that takes an object as its value. So, for example:
$author.name$ ($author.affiliation$)
If you use custom templates, you may need to revise them as pandoc changes. We recommend
tracking the changes in the default templates, and modifying your custom templates
accordingly. An easy way to do this is to fork the pandoc-templates repository and merge in
changes after each pandoc release.
Templates may contain comments: anything on a line after $-- will be treated as a comment
and ignored.
5 Extensions
The behavior of some of the readers and writers can be adjusted by enabling or disabling
various extensions.
An extension can be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name and disabled by
adding -EXTENSION. For example, --from markdown_strict+footnotes is strict
Markdown with footnotes enabled, while --from markdown-footnotes-pipe_tables is
pandoc’s Markdown without footnotes or pipe tables.
The markdown reader and writer make by far the most use of extensions. Extensions only used
by them are therefore covered in the section Pandoc’s Markdown below (See Markdown
variants for commonmark and gfm.) In the following, extensions that also work for other formats
are covered.
5.1 Typography
5.1.0.1 Extension: smart
Interpret straight quotes as curly quotes, --- as em-dashes, -- as en-dashes, and ... as
ellipses. Nonbreaking spaces are inserted after certain abbreviations, such as “Mr.”
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
input formats
markdown, commonmark, latex, mediawiki, org, rst, twiki
output formats
markdown, latex, context, rst
enabled by default in
markdown, latex, context (both input and output)
Note: If you are writing Markdown, then the smart extension has the reverse effect: what
would have been curly quotes comes out straight.
In LaTeX, smart means to use the standard TeX ligatures for quotation marks (`` and '' for
double quotes, ` and ' for single quotes) and dashes (-- for en-dash and --- for em-dash). If
smart is disabled, then in reading LaTeX pandoc will parse these characters literally. In writing
LaTeX, enabling smart tells pandoc to use the ligatures when possible; if smart is disabled
pandoc will use unicode quotation mark and dash characters.
5.2 Headers and sections
5.2.0.1 Extension: auto_identifiers
A header without an explicitly specified identifier will be automatically assigned a unique
identifier based on the header text.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
input formats
markdown, latex, rst, mediawiki, textile
output formats
markdown, muse
enabled by default in
markdown, muse
The default algorithm used to derive the identifier from the header text is:
Remove all formatting, links, etc.
Remove all footnotes.
Remove all punctuation, except underscores, hyphens, and periods.
Replace all spaces and newlines with hyphens.
Convert all alphabetic characters to lowercase.
Remove everything up to the first letter (identifiers may not begin with a number or
punctuation mark).
If nothing is left after this, use the identifier section.
Thus, for example,
Header
Identifier
Header identifiers in HTML
header-identifiers-in-html
*Dogs*?--in *my* house?
dogs--in-my-house
[HTML], [S5], or [RTF]?
html-s5-or-rtf
Header
Identifier
3. Applications
applications
33
section
These rules should, in most cases, allow one to determine the identifier from the header text.
The exception is when several headers have the same text; in this case, the first will get an
identifier as described above; the second will get the same identifier with -1 appended; the
third with -2; and so on.
(However, a different algorithm is used if gfm_auto_identifiers is enabled; see below.)
These identifiers are used to provide link targets in the table of contents generated by the --to
c|--table-of-contents option. They also make it easy to provide links from one section of
a document to another. A link to this section, for example, might look like this:
See the section on
[header identifiers](#header-identifiers-in-html-latex-and-context).
Note, however, that this method of providing links to sections works only in HTML, LaTeX, and
ConTeXt formats.
If the --section-divs option is specified, then each section will be wrapped in a section (or
a div, if html4 was specified), and the identifier will be attached to the enclosing
(or ) tag rather than the header itself. This allows entire sections to be manipulated using
JavaScript or treated differently in CSS.
5.2.0.2 Extension: ascii_identifiers
Causes the identifiers produced by auto_identifiers to be pure ASCII. Accents are stripped
off of accented Latin letters, and non-Latin letters are omitted.
5.2.0.3 Extension: gfm_auto_identifiers
Changes the algorithm used by auto_identifiers to conform to GitHub’s method. Spaces
are converted to dashes (-), uppercase characters to lowercase characters, and punctuation
characters other than - and _ are removed.
5.3 Math Input
The extensions tex_math_dollars, tex_math_single_backslash, and tex_math_double
_backslash are described in the section about Pandoc’s Markdown.
However, they can also be used with HTML input. This is handy for reading web pages
formatted using MathJax, for example.
5.4 Raw HTML/TeX
The following extensions (especially how they affect Markdown input/output) are also
described in more detail in their respective sections of Pandoc’s Markdown.
5.4.0.1 Extension: raw_html
When converting from HTML, parse elements to raw HTML which are not representable in
pandoc’s AST. By default, this is disabled for HTML input.
5.4.0.2 Extension: raw_tex
Allows raw LaTeX, TeX, and ConTeXt to be included in a document.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats (in addition to markdown):
input formats
latex, org, textile, html (environments, \ref, and \eqref only)
output formats
textile, commonmark
5.4.0.3 Extension: native_divs
This extension is enabled by default for HTML input. This means that divs are parsed to pandoc
native elements. (Alternatively, you can parse them to raw HTML using -f html-native_div
s+raw_html.)
When converting HTML to Markdown, for example, you may want to drop all divs and spans:
pandoc -f html-native_divs-native_spans -t markdown
5.4.0.4 Extension: native_spans
Analogous to native_divs above.
5.5 Literate Haskell support
5.5.0.1 Extension: literate_haskell
Treat the document as literate Haskell source.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
input formats
markdown, rst, latex
output formats
markdown, rst, latex, html
If you append +lhs (or +literate_haskell) to one of the formats above, pandoc will treat
the document as literate Haskell source. This means that
In Markdown input, “bird track” sections will be parsed as Haskell code rather than block
quotations. Text between \begin{code} and \end{code} will also be treated as Haskell
code. For ATX-style headers the character ‘=’ will be used instead of ‘#’.
In Markdown output, code blocks with classes haskell and literate will be rendered
using bird tracks, and block quotations will be indented one space, so they will not be
treated as Haskell code. In addition, headers will be rendered setext-style (with
underlines) rather than ATX-style (with ‘#’ characters). (This is because ghc treats ‘#’
characters in column 1 as introducing line numbers.)
In restructured text input, “bird track” sections will be parsed as Haskell code.
In restructured text output, code blocks with class haskell will be rendered using bird
tracks.
In LaTeX input, text in code environments will be parsed as Haskell code.
In LaTeX output, code blocks with class haskell will be rendered inside code
environments.
In HTML output, code blocks with class haskell will be rendered with class literateha
skell and bird tracks.
Examples:
pandoc -f markdown+lhs -t html
reads literate Haskell source formatted with Markdown conventions and writes ordinary HTML
(without bird tracks).
pandoc -f markdown+lhs -t html+lhs
writes HTML with the Haskell code in bird tracks, so it can be copied and pasted as literate
Haskell source.
Note that GHC expects the bird tracks in the first column, so indented literate code blocks
(e.g. inside an itemized environment) will not be picked up by the Haskell compiler.
5.6 Other extensions
5.6.0.1 Extension: empty_paragraphs
Allows empty paragraphs. By default empty paragraphs are omitted.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
input formats
docx, html
output formats
docx, odt, opendocument, html
5.6.0.2 Extension: styles
Read all docx styles as divs (for paragraph styles) and spans (for character styles) regardless of
whether pandoc understands the meaning of these styles. This can be used with docx custom
styles. Disabled by default.
input formats
docx
5.6.0.3 Extension: amuse
In the muse input format, this enables Text::Amuse extensions to Emacs Muse markup.
5.6.0.4 Extension: citations
Some aspects of Pandoc’s Markdown citation syntax are also accepted in org input.
5.6.0.5 Extension: ntb
In the context output format this enables the use of Natural Tables (TABLE) instead of the
default Extreme Tables (xtables). Natural tables allow more fine-grained global customization
but come at a performance penalty compared to extreme tables.
6 Pandoc’s Markdown
Pandoc understands an extended and slightly revised version of John Gruber’s Markdown
syntax. This document explains the syntax, noting differences from standard Markdown. Except
where noted, these differences can be suppressed by using the markdown_strict format
instead of markdown. Extensions can be enabled or disabled to specify the behavior more
granularly. They are described in the following. See also Extensions above, for extensions that
work also on other formats.
6.1 Philosophy
Markdown is designed to be easy to write, and, even more importantly, easy to read:
A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without
looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. – John Gruber
This principle has guided pandoc’s decisions in finding syntax for tables, footnotes, and other
extensions.
There is, however, one respect in which pandoc’s aims are different from the original aims of
Markdown. Whereas Markdown was originally designed with HTML generation in mind,
pandoc is designed for multiple output formats. Thus, while pandoc allows the embedding of
raw HTML, it discourages it, and provides other, non-HTMLish ways of representing important
document elements like definition lists, tables, mathematics, and footnotes.
6.2 Paragraphs
A paragraph is one or more lines of text followed by one or more blank lines. Newlines are
treated as spaces, so you can reflow your paragraphs as you like. If you need a hard line break,
put two or more spaces at the end of a line.
6.2.0.1 Extension: escaped_line_breaks
A backslash followed by a newline is also a hard line break. Note: in multiline and grid table
cells, this is the only way to create a hard line break, since trailing spaces in the cells are
ignored.
6.3 Headers
There are two kinds of headers: Setext and ATX.
6.3.1 Setext-style headers
A setext-style header is a line of text “underlined” with a row of = signs (for a level one header)
or - signs (for a level two header):
A level-one header
==================
A level-two header
------------------
The header text can contain inline formatting, such as emphasis (see Inline formatting, below).
6.3.2 ATX-style headers
An ATX-style header consists of one to six # signs and a line of text, optionally followed by any
number of # signs. The number of # signs at the beginning of the line is the header level:
## A level-two header
### A level-three header ###
As with setext-style headers, the header text can contain formatting:
# A level-one header with a [link](/url) and *emphasis*
6.3.2.1 Extension: blank_before_header
Standard Markdown syntax does not require a blank line before a header. Pandoc does require
this (except, of course, at the beginning of the document). The reason for the requirement is
that it is all too easy for a # to end up at the beginning of a line by accident (perhaps through
line wrapping). Consider, for example:
I like several of their flavors of ice cream:
#22, for example, and #5.
6.3.2.2 Extension: space_in_atx_header
Many Markdown implementations do not require a space between the opening #s of an ATX
header and the header text, so that #5 bolt and #hashtag count as headers. With this
extension, pandoc does require the space.
6.3.3 Header identifiers
See also the auto_identifiers extension above.
6.3.3.1 Extension: header_attributes
Headers can be assigned attributes using this syntax at the end of the line containing the
header text:
{#identifier .class .class key=value key=value}
Thus, for example, the following headers will all be assigned the identifier foo:
# My header {#foo}
## My header ##
My other header
---------------
{#foo}
{#foo}
(This syntax is compatible with PHP Markdown Extra.)
Note that although this syntax allows assignment of classes and key/value attributes, writers
generally don’t use all of this information. Identifiers, classes, and key/value attributes are used
in HTML and HTML-based formats such as EPUB and slidy. Identifiers are used for labels and
link anchors in the LaTeX, ConTeXt, Textile, and AsciiDoc writers.
Headers with the class unnumbered will not be numbered, even if --number-sections is
specified. A single hyphen (-) in an attribute context is equivalent to .unnumbered, and
preferable in non-English documents. So,
# My header {-}
is just the same as
# My header {.unnumbered}
6.3.3.2 Extension: implicit_header_references
Pandoc behaves as if reference links have been defined for each header. So, to link to a header
# Header identifiers in HTML
you can simply write
[Header identifiers in HTML]
or
[Header identifiers in HTML][]
or
[the section on header identifiers][header identifiers in
HTML]
instead of giving the identifier explicitly:
[Header identifiers in HTML](#header-identifiers-in-html)
If there are multiple headers with identical text, the corresponding reference will link to the first
one only, and you will need to use explicit links to link to the others, as described above.
Like regular reference links, these references are case-insensitive.
Explicit link reference definitions always take priority over implicit header references. So, in the
following example, the link will point to bar, not to #foo:
# Foo
[foo]: bar
See [foo]
6.4 Block quotations
Markdown uses email conventions for quoting blocks of text. A block quotation is one or more
paragraphs or other block elements (such as lists or headers), with each line preceded by a >
character and an optional space. (The > need not start at the left margin, but it should not be
indented more than three spaces.)
>
>
>
>
>
This is a block quote. This
paragraph has two lines.
1. This is a list inside a block quote.
2. Second item.
A “lazy” form, which requires the > character only on the first line of each block, is also allowed:
> This is a block quote. This
paragraph has two lines.
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
2. Second item.
Among the block elements that can be contained in a block quote are other block quotes. That
is, block quotes can be nested:
> This is a block quote.
>
> > A block quote within a block quote.
If the > character is followed by an optional space, that space will be considered part of the
block quote marker and not part of the indentation of the contents. Thus, to put an indented
code block in a block quote, you need five spaces after the >:
>
code
6.4.0.1 Extension: blank_before_blockquote
Standard Markdown syntax does not require a blank line before a block quote. Pandoc does
require this (except, of course, at the beginning of the document). The reason for the
requirement is that it is all too easy for a > to end up at the beginning of a line by accident
(perhaps through line wrapping). So, unless the markdown_strict format is used, the
following does not produce a nested block quote in pandoc:
> This is a block quote.
>> Nested.
6.5 Verbatim (code) blocks
6.5.1 Indented code blocks
A block of text indented four spaces (or one tab) is treated as verbatim text: that is, special
characters do not trigger special formatting, and all spaces and line breaks are preserved. For
example,
if (a > 3) {
moveShip(5 * gravity, DOWN);
}
The initial (four space or one tab) indentation is not considered part of the verbatim text, and is
removed in the output.
Note: blank lines in the verbatim text need not begin with four spaces.
6.5.2 Fenced code blocks
6.5.2.1 Extension: fenced_code_blocks
In addition to standard indented code blocks, pandoc supports fenced code blocks. These begin
with a row of three or more tildes (~) and end with a row of tildes that must be at least as long
as the starting row. Everything between these lines is treated as code. No indentation is
necessary:
~~~~~~~
if (a > 3) {
moveShip(5 * gravity, DOWN);
}
~~~~~~~
Like regular code blocks, fenced code blocks must be separated from surrounding text by blank
lines.
If the code itself contains a row of tildes or backticks, just use a longer row of tildes or backticks
at the start and end:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
code including tildes
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6.5.2.2 Extension: backtick_code_blocks
Same as fenced_code_blocks, but uses backticks (`) instead of tildes (~).
6.5.2.3 Extension: fenced_code_attributes
Optionally, you may attach attributes to fenced or backtick code block using this syntax:
~~~~ {#mycode .haskell .numberLines startFrom="100"}
qsort []
= []
qsort (x:xs) = qsort (filter (< x) xs) ++ [x] ++
qsort (filter (>= x) xs)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here mycode is an identifier, haskell and numberLines are classes, and startFrom is an
attribute with value 100. Some output formats can use this information to do syntax
highlighting. Currently, the only output formats that uses this information are HTML, LaTeX,
Docx, Ms, and PowerPoint. If highlighting is supported for your output format and language,
then the code block above will appear highlighted, with numbered lines. (To see which
languages are supported, type pandoc --list-highlight-languages.) Otherwise, the code
block above will appear as follows:
...
The numberLines (or number-lines) class will cause the lines of the code block to be
numbered, starting with 1 or the value of the startFrom attribute. The lineAnchors (or line
-anchors) class will cause the lines to be clickable anchors in HTML output.
A shortcut form can also be used for specifying the language of the code block:
```haskell
qsort [] = []
```
This is equivalent to:
``` {.haskell}
qsort [] = []
```
If the fenced_code_attributes extension is disabled, but input contains class attribute(s) for
the code block, the first class attribute will be printed after the opening fence as a bare word.
To prevent all highlighting, use the --no-highlight flag. To set the highlighting style, use --h
ighlight-style. For more information on highlighting, see Syntax highlighting, below.
6.6 Line blocks
6.6.0.1 Extension: line_blocks
A line block is a sequence of lines beginning with a vertical bar (|) followed by a space. The
division into lines will be preserved in the output, as will any leading spaces; otherwise, the
lines will be formatted as Markdown. This is useful for verse and addresses:
| The limerick packs laughs anatomical
| In space that is quite economical.
|
But the good ones I've seen
|
So seldom are clean
| And the clean ones so seldom are comical
| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718
The lines can be hard-wrapped if needed, but the continuation line must begin with a space.
| The Right Honorable Most Venerable and Righteous Samuel L.
Constable, Jr.
| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718
This syntax is borrowed from reStructuredText.
6.7 Lists
6.7.1 Bullet lists
A bullet list is a list of bulleted list items. A bulleted list item begins with a bullet (*, +, or -).
Here is a simple example:
* one
* two
* three
This will produce a “compact” list. If you want a “loose” list, in which each item is formatted as a
paragraph, put spaces between the items:
* one
* two
* three
The bullets need not be flush with the left margin; they may be indented one, two, or three
spaces. The bullet must be followed by whitespace.
List items look best if subsequent lines are flush with the first line (after the bullet):
* here is my first
list item.
* and my second.
But Markdown also allows a “lazy” format:
* here is my first
list item.
* and my second.
6.7.2 Block content in list items
A list item may contain multiple paragraphs and other block-level content. However,
subsequent paragraphs must be preceded by a blank line and indented to line up with the first
non-space content after the list marker.
* First paragraph.
Continued.
* Second paragraph. With a code block, which must be indented
eight spaces:
{ code }
Exception: if the list marker is followed by an indented code block, which must begin 5 spaces
after the list marker, then subsequent paragraphs must begin two columns after the last
character of the list marker:
*
code
continuation paragraph
List items may include other lists. In this case the preceding blank line is optional. The nested
list must be indented to line up with the first non-space character after the list marker of the
containing list item.
* fruits
+ apples
- macintosh
- red delicious
+ pears
+ peaches
* vegetables
+ broccoli
+ chard
As noted above, Markdown allows you to write list items “lazily,” instead of indenting
continuation lines. However, if there are multiple paragraphs or other blocks in a list item, the
first line of each must be indented.
+ A lazy, lazy, list
item.
+ Another one; this looks
bad but is legal.
Second paragraph of second
list item.
6.7.3 Ordered lists
Ordered lists work just like bulleted lists, except that the items begin with enumerators rather
than bullets.
In standard Markdown, enumerators are decimal numbers followed by a period and a space.
The numbers themselves are ignored, so there is no difference between this list:
1. one
2. two
3. three
and this one:
5. one
7. two
1. three
6.7.3.1 Extension: fancy_lists
Unlike standard Markdown, pandoc allows ordered list items to be marked with uppercase and
lowercase letters and roman numerals, in addition to Arabic numerals. List markers may be
enclosed in parentheses or followed by a single right-parentheses or period. They must be
separated from the text that follows by at least one space, and, if the list marker is a capital
2
letter with a period, by at least two spaces.
The fancy_lists extension also allows ‘#’ to be used as an ordered list marker in place of a
numeral:
#. one
#. two
6.7.3.2 Extension: startnum
Pandoc also pays attention to the type of list marker used, and to the starting number, and both
of these are preserved where possible in the output format. Thus, the following yields a list with
numbers followed by a single parenthesis, starting with 9, and a sublist with lowercase roman
numerals:
9) Ninth
10) Tenth
11) Eleventh
i. subone
ii. subtwo
iii. subthree
Pandoc will start a new list each time a different type of list marker is used. So, the following
will create three lists:
(2)
(5)
1.
*
Two
Three
Four
Five
If default list markers are desired, use #.:
#. one
#. two
#. three
6.7.4 Definition lists
6.7.4.1 Extension: definition_lists
Pandoc supports definition lists, using the syntax of PHP Markdown Extra with some
3
extensions.
Term 1
:
Definition 1
Term 2 with *inline markup*
:
Definition 2
{ some code, part of Definition 2 }
Third paragraph of definition 2.
Each term must fit on one line, which may optionally be followed by a blank line, and must be
followed by one or more definitions. A definition begins with a colon or tilde, which may be
indented one or two spaces.
A term may have multiple definitions, and each definition may consist of one or more block
elements (paragraph, code block, list, etc.), each indented four spaces or one tab stop. The body
of the definition (including the first line, aside from the colon or tilde) should be indented four
spaces. However, as with other Markdown lists, you can “lazily” omit indentation except at the
beginning of a paragraph or other block element:
Term 1
: Definition
with lazy continuation.
Second paragraph of the definition.
If you leave space before the definition (as in the example above), the text of the definition will
be treated as a paragraph. In some output formats, this will mean greater spacing between
term/definition pairs. For a more compact definition list, omit the space before the definition:
Term 1
~ Definition 1
Term 2
~ Definition 2a
~ Definition 2b
Note that space between items in a definition list is required. (A variant that loosens this
requirement, but disallows “lazy” hard wrapping, can be activated with compact_definition
_lists: see Non-pandoc extensions, below.)
6.7.5 Numbered example lists
6.7.5.1 Extension: example_lists
The special list marker @ can be used for sequentially numbered examples. The first list item
with a @ marker will be numbered ‘1’, the next ‘2’, and so on, throughout the document. The
numbered examples need not occur in a single list; each new list using @ will take up where the
last stopped. So, for example:
(@) My first example will be numbered (1).
(@) My second example will be numbered (2).
Explanation of examples.
(@) My third example will be numbered (3).
Numbered examples can be labeled and referred to elsewhere in the document:
(@good) This is a good example.
As (@good) illustrates, ...
The label can be any string of alphanumeric characters, underscores, or hyphens.
Note: continuation paragraphs in example lists must always be indented four spaces, regardless
of the length of the list marker. That is, example lists always behave as if the four_space_rul
e extension is set. This is because example labels tend to be long, and indenting content to the
first non-space character after the label would be awkward.
6.7.6 Compact and loose lists
Pandoc behaves differently from Markdown.pl on some “edge cases” involving lists. Consider
this source:
+
+
First
Second:
- Fee
- Fie
- Foe
+
Third
Pandoc transforms this into a “compact list” (with no tags around “First”, “Second”, or
“Third”), while Markdown puts
tags around “Second” and “Third” (but not “First”), because
of the blank space around “Third”. Pandoc follows a simple rule: if the text is followed by a
blank line, it is treated as a paragraph. Since “Second” is followed by a list, and not a blank line,
it isn’t treated as a paragraph. The fact that the list is followed by a blank line is irrelevant.
(Note: Pandoc works this way even when the markdown_strict format is specified. This
behavior is consistent with the official Markdown syntax description, even though it is different
from that of Markdown.pl.)
6.7.7 Ending a list
What if you want to put an indented code block after a list?
-
item one
item two
{ my code block }
Trouble! Here pandoc (like other Markdown implementations) will treat { my code block }
as the second paragraph of item two, and not as a code block.
To “cut off” the list after item two, you can insert some non-indented content, like an HTML
comment, which won’t produce visible output in any format:
-
item one
item two
{ my code block }
You can use the same trick if you want two consecutive lists instead of one big list:
1. one
2. two
3. three
1. uno
2. dos
3. tres
6.8 Horizontal rules
A line containing a row of three or more *, -, or _ characters (optionally separated by spaces)
produces a horizontal rule:
* * * *
---------------
6.9 Tables
Four kinds of tables may be used. The first three kinds presuppose the use of a fixed-width font,
such as Courier. The fourth kind can be used with proportionally spaced fonts, as it does not
require lining up columns.
6.9.0.1 Extension: table_captions
A caption may optionally be provided with all 4 kinds of tables (as illustrated in the examples
below). A caption is a paragraph beginning with the string Table: (or just :), which will be
stripped off. It may appear either before or after the table.
6.9.0.2 Extension: simple_tables
Simple tables look like this:
Right
------12
123
1
Left
Center
------ ---------12
12
123
123
1
1
Default
------12
123
1
Table: Demonstration of simple table syntax.
The headers and table rows must each fit on one line. Column alignments are determined by
4
the position of the header text relative to the dashed line below it:
If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the right side but extends beyond it on
the left, the column is right-aligned.
If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the left side but extends beyond it on the
right, the column is left-aligned.
If the dashed line extends beyond the header text on both sides, the column is centered.
If the dashed line is flush with the header text on both sides, the default alignment is used
(in most cases, this will be left).
The table must end with a blank line, or a line of dashes followed by a blank line.
The column headers may be omitted, provided a dashed line is used to end the table. For
example:
------12
123
1
-------
------ ---------12
12
123
123
1
1
------ ----------
------12
123
1
-------
When headers are omitted, column alignments are determined on the basis of the first line of
the table body. So, in the tables above, the columns would be right, left, center, and right
aligned, respectively.
6.9.0.3 Extension: multiline_tables
Multiline tables allow headers and table rows to span multiple lines of text (but cells that span
multiple columns or rows of the table are not supported). Here is an example:
------------------------------------------------------------Centered Default
Right Left
Header
Aligned
Aligned Aligned
----------- ------- --------------- ------------------------First
row
12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
Second
row
5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
rows.
------------------------------------------------------------Table: Here's the caption. It, too, may span
multiple lines.
These work like simple tables, but with the following differences:
They must begin with a row of dashes, before the header text (unless the headers are
omitted).
They must end with a row of dashes, then a blank line.
The rows must be separated by blank lines.
In multiline tables, the table parser pays attention to the widths of the columns, and the writers
try to reproduce these relative widths in the output. So, if you find that one of the columns is
too narrow in the output, try widening it in the Markdown source.
Headers may be omitted in multiline tables as well as simple tables:
----------- ------- --------------- ------------------------First
row
12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
Second
row
5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
rows.
----------- ------- --------------- ------------------------: Here's a multiline table without headers.
It is possible for a multiline table to have just one row, but the row should be followed by a
blank line (and then the row of dashes that ends the table), or the table may be interpreted as a
simple table.
6.9.0.4 Extension: grid_tables
Grid tables look like this:
: Sample grid table.
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Fruit
| Price
| Advantages
|
+===============+===============+====================+
| Bananas
| $1.34
| - built-in wrapper |
|
|
| - bright color
|
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Oranges
| $2.10
| - cures scurvy
|
|
|
| - tasty
|
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
The row of =s separates the header from the table body, and can be omitted for a headerless
table. The cells of grid tables may contain arbitrary block elements (multiple paragraphs, code
blocks, lists, etc.). Cells that span multiple columns or rows are not supported. Grid tables can
be created easily using Emacs table mode.
Alignments can be specified as with pipe tables, by putting colons at the boundaries of the
separator line after the header:
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Right
| Left
| Centered
|
+==============:+:==============+:==================:+
| Bananas
| $1.34
| built-in wrapper |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
For headerless tables, the colons go on the top line instead:
+--------------:+:--------------+:------------------:+
| Right
| Left
| Centered
|
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
6.9.0.4.1 Grid Table Limitations
Pandoc does not support grid tables with row spans or column spans. This means that neither
variable numbers of columns across rows nor variable numbers of rows across columns are
supported by Pandoc. All grid tables must have the same number of columns in each row, and
the same number of rows in each column. For example, the Docutils sample grid tables will not
render as expected with Pandoc.
6.9.0.5 Extension: pipe_tables
Pipe tables look like this:
| Right | Left | Default | Center |
|------:|:-----|---------|:------:|
| 12 | 12 |
12 |
12 |
| 123 | 123 | 123 | 123 |
|
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
: Demonstration of pipe table syntax.
The syntax is identical to PHP Markdown Extra tables. The beginning and ending pipe
characters are optional, but pipes are required between all columns. The colons indicate column
alignment as shown. The header cannot be omitted. To simulate a headerless table, include a
header with blank cells.
Since the pipes indicate column boundaries, columns need not be vertically aligned, as they are
in the above example. So, this is a perfectly legal (though ugly) pipe table:
fruit| price
-----|-----:
apple|2.05
pear|1.37
orange|3.09
The cells of pipe tables cannot contain block elements like paragraphs and lists, and cannot
span multiple lines. If a pipe table contains a row whose printable content is wider than the
column width (see --columns), then the table will take up the full text width and the cell
contents will wrap, with the relative cell widths determined by the number of dashes in the line
separating the table header from the table body. (For example ---|- would make the first
column 3/4 and the second column 1/4 of the full text width.) On the other hand, if no lines are
wider than column width, then cell contents will not be wrapped, and the cells will be sized to
their contents.
Note: pandoc also recognizes pipe tables of the following form, as can be produced by Emacs’
orgtbl-mode:
| One | Two |
|-----+-------|
| my | table |
| is | nice |
The difference is that + is used instead of |. Other orgtbl features are not supported. In
particular, to get non-default column alignment, you’ll need to add colons as above.
6.10 Metadata blocks
6.10.0.1 Extension: pandoc_title_block
If the file begins with a title block
% title
% author(s) (separated by semicolons)
% date
it will be parsed as bibliographic information, not regular text. (It will be used, for example, in
the title of standalone LaTeX or HTML output.) The block may contain just a title, a title and an
author, or all three elements. If you want to include an author but no title, or a title and a date
but no author, you need a blank line:
%
% Author
% My title
%
% June 15, 2006
The title may occupy multiple lines, but continuation lines must begin with leading space, thus:
% My title
on multiple lines
If a document has multiple authors, the authors may be put on separate lines with leading
space, or separated by semicolons, or both. So, all of the following are equivalent:
% Author One
Author Two
% Author One; Author Two
% Author One;
Author Two
The date must fit on one line.
All three metadata fields may contain standard inline formatting (italics, links, footnotes, etc.).
Title blocks will always be parsed, but they will affect the output only when the --standalone
(-s) option is chosen. In HTML output, titles will appear twice: once in the document head – this
is the title that will appear at the top of the window in a browser – and once at the beginning of
the document body. The title in the document head can have an optional prefix attached (--tit
le-prefix or -T option). The title in the body appears as an H1 element with class “title”, so it
can be suppressed or reformatted with CSS. If a title prefix is specified with -T and no title
block appears in the document, the title prefix will be used by itself as the HTML title.
The man page writer extracts a title, man page section number, and other header and footer
information from the title line. The title is assumed to be the first word on the title line, which
may optionally end with a (single-digit) section number in parentheses. (There should be no
space between the title and the parentheses.) Anything after this is assumed to be additional
footer and header text. A single pipe character (|) should be used to separate the footer text
from the header text. Thus,
% PANDOC(1)
will yield a man page with the title PANDOC and section 1.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals
will also have “Pandoc User Manuals” in the footer.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals | Version 4.0
will also have “Version 4.0” in the header.
6.10.0.2 Extension: yaml_metadata_block
A YAML metadata block is a valid YAML object, delimited by a line of three hyphens (---) at the
top and a line of three hyphens (---) or three dots (...) at the bottom. A YAML metadata
block may occur anywhere in the document, but if it is not at the beginning, it must be
preceded by a blank line. (Note that, because of the way pandoc concatenates input files when
several are provided, you may also keep the metadata in a separate YAML file and pass it to
pandoc as an argument, along with your Markdown files:
pandoc chap1.md chap2.md chap3.md metadata.yaml -s -o book.html
Just be sure that the YAML file begins with --- and ends with --- or ....) Alternatively, you
can use the --metadata-file option. Using that approach however, you cannot reference
content (like footnotes) from the main markdown input document.
Metadata will be taken from the fields of the YAML object and added to any existing document
metadata. Metadata can contain lists and objects (nested arbitrarily), but all string scalars will
be interpreted as Markdown. Fields with names ending in an underscore will be ignored by
pandoc. (They may be given a role by external processors.) Field names must not be
interpretable as YAML numbers or boolean values (so, for example, yes, True, and 15 cannot
be used as field names).
A document may contain multiple metadata blocks. The metadata fields will be combined
through a left-biased union: if two metadata blocks attempt to set the same field, the value
from the first block will be taken.
When pandoc is used with -t markdown to create a Markdown document, a YAML metadata
block will be produced only if the -s/--standalone option is used. All of the metadata will
appear in a single block at the beginning of the document.
Note that YAML escaping rules must be followed. Thus, for example, if a title contains a colon, it
must be quoted. The pipe character (|) can be used to begin an indented block that will be
interpreted literally, without need for escaping. This form is necessary when the field contains
blank lines or block-level formatting:
--title: 'This is the title: it contains a colon'
author:
- Author One
- Author Two
keywords: [nothing, nothingness]
abstract: |
This is the abstract.
It consists of two paragraphs.
...
Template variables will be set automatically from the metadata. Thus, for example, in writing
HTML, the variable abstract will be set to the HTML equivalent of the Markdown in the abstr
act field:
This is the abstract.
It consists of two paragraphs.
Variables can contain arbitrary YAML structures, but the template must match this structure.
The author variable in the default templates expects a simple list or string, but can be changed
to support more complicated structures. The following combination, for example, would add an
affiliation to the author if one is given:
--title: The document title
author:
- name: Author One
affiliation: University of Somewhere
- name: Author Two
affiliation: University of Nowhere
...
To use the structured authors in the example above, you would need a custom template:
$for(author)$
$if(author.name)$
$author.name$$if(author.affiliation)$ ($author.affiliation$)$endif$
$else$
$author$
$endif$
$endfor$
Raw content to include in the document’s header may be specified using header-includes;
however, it is important to mark up this content as raw code for a particular output format,
using the raw_attribute extension), or it will be interpreted as markdown. For example:
header-includes:
- |
```{=latex}
\let\oldsection\section
\renewcommand{\section}[1]{\clearpage\oldsection{#1}}
```
6.11 Backslash escapes
6.11.0.1 Extension: all_symbols_escapable
Except inside a code block or inline code, any punctuation or space character preceded by a
backslash will be treated literally, even if it would normally indicate formatting. Thus, for
example, if one writes
*\*hello\**
one will get
*hello*
instead of
hello
This rule is easier to remember than standard Markdown’s rule, which allows only the
following characters to be backslash-escaped:
\`*_{}[]()>#+-.!
(However, if the markdown_strict format is used, the standard Markdown rule will be used.)
A backslash-escaped space is parsed as a nonbreaking space. It will appear in TeX output as ~
and in HTML and XML as \ or \ .
A backslash-escaped newline (i.e. a backslash occurring at the end of a line) is parsed as a hard
line break. It will appear in TeX output as \\ and in HTML as
. This is a nice alternative to
Markdown’s “invisible” way of indicating hard line breaks using two trailing spaces on a line.
Backslash escapes do not work in verbatim contexts.
6.12 Inline formatting
6.12.1 Emphasis
To emphasize some text, surround it with *s or _, like this:
This text is _emphasized with underscores_, and this
is *emphasized with asterisks*.
Double * or _ produces strong emphasis:
This is **strong emphasis** and __with underscores__.
A * or _ character surrounded by spaces, or backslash-escaped, will not trigger emphasis:
This is * not emphasized *, and \*neither is this\*.
6.12.1.1 Extension: intraword_underscores
Because _ is sometimes used inside words and identifiers, pandoc does not interpret a _
surrounded by alphanumeric characters as an emphasis marker. If you want to emphasize just
part of a word, use *:
feas*ible*, not feas*able*.
6.12.2 Strikeout
6.12.2.1 Extension: strikeout
To strikeout a section of text with a horizontal line, begin and end it with ~~. Thus, for example,
This ~~is deleted text.~~
6.12.3 Superscripts and subscripts
6.12.3.1 Extension: superscript, subscript
Superscripts may be written by surrounding the superscripted text by ^ characters; subscripts
may be written by surrounding the subscripted text by ~ characters. Thus, for example,
H~2~O is a liquid. 2^10^ is 1024.
If the superscripted or subscripted text contains spaces, these spaces must be escaped with
backslashes. (This is to prevent accidental superscripting and subscripting through the ordinary
use of ~ and ^.) Thus, if you want the letter P with ‘a cat’ in subscripts, use P~a\ cat~, not P~a
cat~.
6.12.4 Verbatim
To make a short span of text verbatim, put it inside backticks:
What is the difference between `>>=` and `>>`?
If the verbatim text includes a backtick, use double backticks:
Here is a literal backtick `` ` ``.
(The spaces after the opening backticks and before the closing backticks will be ignored.)
The general rule is that a verbatim span starts with a string of consecutive backticks (optionally
followed by a space) and ends with a string of the same number of backticks (optionally
preceded by a space).
Note that backslash-escapes (and other Markdown constructs) do not work in verbatim
contexts:
This is a backslash followed by an asterisk: `\*`.
6.12.4.1 Extension: inline_code_attributes
Attributes can be attached to verbatim text, just as with fenced code blocks:
`<$>`{.haskell}
6.12.5 Small caps
To write small caps, use the smallcaps class:
[Small caps]{.smallcaps}
Or, without the bracketed_spans extension:
Small caps
For compatibility with other Markdown flavors, CSS is also supported:
Small caps
This will work in all output formats that support small caps.
6.13 Math
6.13.0.1 Extension: tex_math_dollars
Anything between two $ characters will be treated as TeX math. The opening $ must have a
non-space character immediately to its right, while the closing $ must have a non-space
character immediately to its left, and must not be followed immediately by a digit. Thus, $20,0
00 and $30,000 won’t parse as math. If for some reason you need to enclose text in literal $
characters, backslash-escape them and they won’t be treated as math delimiters.
TeX math will be printed in all output formats. How it is rendered depends on the output
format:
LaTeX
It will appear verbatim surrounded by \(...\) (for inline math) or \[...\] (for display
math).
Markdown, Emacs Org mode, ConTeXt, ZimWiki
It will appear verbatim surrounded by $...$ (for inline math) or $$...$$ (for display
math).
reStructuredText
It will be rendered using an interpreted text role :math:.
AsciiDoc
It will be rendered as latexmath:[...].
Texinfo
It will be rendered inside a @math command.
roff man
It will be rendered verbatim without $’s.
MediaWiki, DokuWiki
It will be rendered inside