Pandoc User’s Guide MANUAL

User Manual:

Open the PDF directly: View PDF .
Page Count: 91

Pandoc User’s Guide
1 Synopsis
2 Description
3 Options
4 Templates
5 Extensions
6 Pandoc’s Markdown
7 Producing slide shows with pandoc
8 Creating EPUBs with pandoc
9 Syntax highlighting
10 Custom Styles
- 10.1 Input
- 10.2 Output
11 Custom writers
12 A note on security
13 Authors

Pandoc User’s Guide
John MacFarlane
November 25, 2018
Synopsis
Description
1 Using pandoc
2 Specifying formats
3 Character encoding
4 Creating a PDF
5 Reading from the Web
Options
1 General options
2 Reader options
3 General writer options
4 Options affecting specific writers
5 Citation rendering
6 Math rendering in HTML
7 Options for wrapper scripts
Templates
1 Variables set by pandoc
2 Language variables
3 Variables for slides
4 Variables for LaTeX
5 Variables for ConTeXt
6 Variables for man pages
7 Variables for ms
8 Using variables in templates
Extensions
1 Typography
2 Headers and sections
3 Math Input
4 Raw HTML/TeX
5 Literate Haskell support
6 Other extensions
Pandoc’s Markdown
1 Philosophy
2 Paragraphs
3 Headers
3.1 Setext-style headers
3.2 ATX-style headers
3.3 Header identifiers

4 Block quotations
5 Verbatim (code) blocks
5.1 Indented code blocks
5.2 Fenced code blocks
6 Line blocks
7 Lists
7.1 Bullet lists
7.2 Block content in list items
7.3 Ordered lists
7.4 Definition lists
7.5 Numbered example lists
7.6 Compact and loose lists
7.7 Ending a list
8 Horizontal rules
9 Tables
10 Metadata blocks
11 Backslash escapes
12 Inline formatting
12.1 Emphasis
12.2 Strikeout
12.3 Superscripts and subscripts
12.4 Verbatim
12.5 Small caps
13 Math
14 Raw HTML
14.1 Generic raw attribute
15 LaTeX macros
16 Links
16.1 Automatic links
16.2 Inline links
16.3 Reference links
16.4 Internal links
17 Images
18 Divs and Spans
19 Footnotes
20 Citations
21 Non-pandoc extensions
22 Markdown variants
Producing slide shows with pandoc
1 Structuring the slide show
2 Incremental lists
3 Inserting pauses
4 Styling the slides
5 Speaker notes
6 Columns
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 <head> and <body>), 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-PDF-
engines, 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 non-
textual 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 element-

transforming 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

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 </body>

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 <q> 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 multi-

byte 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 <section> tags (or <div> tags for html4), and attach identifiers to the

enclosing <section> (or <div>) 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. Title Slide

2. Title and Content

3. Section Header

4. 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:

<dc:rights>Creative Commons</dc:rights>

<dc:language>es-AR</dc:language>

By default, pandoc will include the following metadata elements: <dc:title> (from the

document title), <dc:creator> (from the document authors), <dc:date> (from the

document date, which should be in ISO 8601 format), <dc:language> (from the lang

variable, or, if is not set, the locale), and <dc:identifier id="BookId"> (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.

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 <span
> 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 e-
book readers) natively support MathML.
--webtex[=URL]
Convert TeX formulas to <img> 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 <eq> 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

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>$title$</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:

$if(variable)$

$else$

$endif$

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

3. Applications applications

33 section

Header Identifier

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 <section>

(or <div>) 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 ## {#foo}

My other header {#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]

[Header identifiers in HTML][]

[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:

<code>

...

</code>

</pre>

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

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) Two

(5) Three

1. 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

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 <p> tags around “First”, “Second”, or

“Third”), while Markdown puts <p> 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 Left Center Default

------- ------ ---------- -------

12 12 12 12

123 123 123 123

1 1 1 1

Table: Demonstration of simple table syntax.

The headers and table rows must each fit on one line. Column alignments are determined by

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 12 12 12

123 123 123 123

1 1 1 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:

|------:|:-----|---------|:------:|

| 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:

<p>This is the abstract.</p>

<p>It consists of two paragraphs.</p>

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

<em>*hello*</em>

instead of

<strong>hello</strong>

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 <br />. 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:

<span class="smallcaps">Small caps</span>

For compatibility with other Markdown flavors, CSS is also supported:

<span style="font-variant:small-caps;">Small caps</span>

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 <math> tags.

Textile

It will be rendered inside <span class="math"> tags.

RTF, OpenDocument

It will be rendered, if possible, using Unicode characters, and will otherwise appear

verbatim.

ODT

It will be rendered, if possible, using MathML.

DocBook

If the --mathml flag is used, it will be rendered using MathML in an inlineequation or

informalequation tag. Otherwise it will be rendered, if possible, using Unicode

characters.

Docx

It will be rendered using OMML math markup.

FictionBook2

If the --webtex option is used, formulas are rendered as images using CodeCogs or

other compatible web service, downloaded and embedded in the e-book. Otherwise, they

will appear verbatim.

HTML, Slidy, DZSlides, S5, EPUB

The way math is rendered in HTML will depend on the command-line options selected.

Therefore see Math rendering in HTML above.

6.14 Raw HTML

6.14.0.1 Extension: raw_html

Markdown allows you to insert raw HTML (or DocBook) anywhere in a document (except

verbatim contexts, where <, >, and & are interpreted literally). (Technically this is not an

extension, since standard Markdown allows it, but it has been made an extension so that it can

be disabled if desired.)

The raw HTML is passed through unchanged in HTML, S5, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, EPUB,

Markdown, CommonMark, Emacs Org mode, and Textile output, and suppressed in other

formats.

In the CommonMark format, if raw_html is enabled, superscripts, subscripts, strikeouts and

small capitals will be represented as HTML. Otherwise, plain-text fallbacks will be used. Note

that even if raw_html is disabled, tables will be rendered with HTML syntax if they cannot use

pipe syntax.

6.14.0.2 Extension: markdown_in_html_blocks

Standard Markdown allows you to include HTML “blocks”: blocks of HTML between balanced

tags that are separated from the surrounding text with blank lines, and start and end at the left

margin. Within these blocks, everything is interpreted as HTML, not Markdown; so (for

example), * does not signify emphasis.

Pandoc behaves this way when the markdown_strict format is used; but by default, pandoc

interprets material between HTML block tags as Markdown. Thus, for example, pandoc will turn

<table>

<tr>

<td>[a link](http://google.com)</td>

</tr>

</table>

into

<table>

<tr>

</tr>

</table>

whereas Markdown.pl will preserve it as is.

There is one exception to this rule: text between <script> and <style> tags is not interpreted

as Markdown.

This departure from standard Markdown should make it easier to mix Markdown with HTML

block elements. For example, one can surround a block of Markdown text with <div> tags

without preventing it from being interpreted as Markdown.

6.14.0.3 Extension: native_divs

Use native pandoc Div blocks for content inside <div> tags. For the most part this should give

the same output as markdown_in_html_blocks, but it makes it easier to write pandoc filters

to manipulate groups of blocks.

6.14.0.4 Extension: native_spans

Use native pandoc Span blocks for content inside <span> tags. For the most part this should

give the same output as raw_html, but it makes it easier to write pandoc filters to manipulate

groups of inlines.

6.14.0.5 Extension: raw_tex

In addition to raw HTML, pandoc allows raw LaTeX, TeX, and ConTeXt to be included in a

document. Inline TeX commands will be preserved and passed unchanged to the LaTeX and

ConTeXt writers. Thus, for example, you can use LaTeX to include BibTeX citations:

This result was proved in \cite{jones.1967}.

Note that in LaTeX environments, like

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}\hline

Age & Frequency \\ \hline

18--25 & 15 \\

26--35 & 33 \\

36--45 & 22 \\ \hline

\end{tabular}

the material between the begin and end tags will be interpreted as raw LaTeX, not as

Markdown.

Inline LaTeX is ignored in output formats other than Markdown, LaTeX, Emacs Org mode, and

ConTeXt.

6.14.1 Generic raw attribute

6.14.1.1 Extension: raw_attribute

Inline spans and fenced code blocks with a special kind of attribute will be parsed as raw

content with the designated format. For example, the following produces a raw roff ms block:

```{=ms}

.MYMACRO

blah blah

```

And the following produces a raw html inline element:

This is `<a>html</a>`{=html}

This can be useful to insert raw xml into docx documents, e.g. a pagebreak:

```{=openxml}

<w:p>

<w:r>

<w:br w:type="page"/>

</w:r>

</w:p>

```

The format name should match the target format name (see -t/--to, above, for a list, or use p

andoc --list-output-formats). Use openxml for docx output, opendocument for odt

output, html5 for epub3 output, html4 for epub2 output, and latex, beamer, ms, or html5 for

pdf output (depending on what you use for --pdf-engine).

This extension presupposes that the relevant kind of inline code or fenced code block is

enabled. Thus, for example, to use a raw attribute with a backtick code block, backtick_code_

blocks must be enabled.

The raw attribute cannot be combined with regular attributes.

6.15 LaTeX macros

6.15.0.1 Extension: latex_macros

When this extension is enabled, pandoc will parse LaTeX macro definitions and apply the

resulting macros to all LaTeX math and raw LaTeX. So, for example, the following will work in

all output formats, not just LaTeX:

\newcommand{\tuple}[1]{\langle #1 \rangle}

$\tuple{a, b, c}$

Note that LaTeX macros will not be applied if they occur inside inside a raw span or block

marked with the raw_attribute extension.

When latex_macros is disabled, the raw LaTeX and math will not have macros applied. This is

usually a better approach when you are targeting LaTeX or PDF.

Whether or not latex_macros is enabled, the macro definitions will still be passed through as

raw LaTeX.

6.16 Links

Markdown allows links to be specified in several ways.

6.16.1 Automatic links

If you enclose a URL or email address in pointy brackets, it will become a link:

<http://google.com>

<sam@green.eggs.ham>

6.16.2 Inline links

An inline link consists of the link text in square brackets, followed by the URL in parentheses.

(Optionally, the URL can be followed by a link title, in quotes.)

This is an [inline link](/url), and here's [one with

a title](http://fsf.org "click here for a good time!").

There can be no space between the bracketed part and the parenthesized part. The link text can

contain formatting (such as emphasis), but the title cannot.

Email addresses in inline links are not autodetected, so they have to be prefixed with mailto:

[Write me!](mailto:sam@green.eggs.ham)

6.16.3 Reference links

An explicit reference link has two parts, the link itself and the link definition, which may occur

elsewhere in the document (either before or after the link).

The link consists of link text in square brackets, followed by a label in square brackets. (There

cannot be space between the two unless the spaced_reference_links extension is enabled.)

The link definition consists of the bracketed label, followed by a colon and a space, followed by

the URL, and optionally (after a space) a link title either in quotes or in parentheses. The label

must not be parseable as a citation (assuming the citations extension is enabled): citations

take precedence over link labels.

Here are some examples:

[my label 1]: /foo/bar.html "My title, optional"

[my label 2]: /foo

[my label 3]: http://fsf.org (The free software foundation)

[my label 4]: /bar#special 'A title in single quotes'

The URL may optionally be surrounded by angle brackets:

[my label 5]: <http://foo.bar.baz>

The title may go on the next line:

[my label 3]: http://fsf.org

"The free software foundation"

Note that link labels are not case sensitive. So, this will work:

Here is [my link][FOO]

[Foo]: /bar/baz

In an implicit reference link, the second pair of brackets is empty:

See [my website][].

[my website]: http://foo.bar.baz

Note: In Markdown.pl and most other Markdown implementations, reference link definitions

cannot occur in nested constructions such as list items or block quotes. Pandoc lifts this

arbitrary seeming restriction. So the following is fine in pandoc, though not in most other

implementations:

> My block [quote].

> [quote]: /foo

6.16.3.1 Extension: shortcut_reference_links

In a shortcut reference link, the second pair of brackets may be omitted entirely:

See [my website].

[my website]: http://foo.bar.baz

6.16.4 Internal links

To link to another section of the same document, use the automatically generated identifier

(see Header identifiers). For example:

See the [Introduction](#introduction).

See the [Introduction].

[Introduction]: #introduction

Internal links are currently supported for HTML formats (including HTML slide shows and

EPUB), LaTeX, and ConTeXt.

6.17 Images

A link immediately preceded by a ! will be treated as an image. The link text will be used as the

image’s alt text:

![la lune](lalune.jpg "Voyage to the moon")

![movie reel]

[movie reel]: movie.gif

6.17.0.1 Extension: implicit_figures

An image with nonempty alt text, occurring by itself in a paragraph, will be rendered as a figure

with a caption. The image’s alt text will be used as the caption.

![This is the caption](/url/of/image.png)

How this is rendered depends on the output format. Some output formats (e.g. RTF) do not yet

support figures. In those formats, you’ll just get an image in a paragraph by itself, with no

caption.

If you just want a regular inline image, just make sure it is not the only thing in the paragraph.

One way to do this is to insert a nonbreaking space after the image:

![This image won't be a figure](/url/of/image.png)\

Note that in reveal.js slide shows, an image in a paragraph by itself that has the stretch class

will fill the screen, and the caption and figure tags will be omitted.

6.17.0.2 Extension: link_attributes

Attributes can be set on links and images:

An inline ![image](foo.jpg){#id .class width=30 height=20px}

and a reference ![image][ref] with attributes.

[ref]: foo.jpg "optional title" {#id .class key=val key2="val 2"}

(This syntax is compatible with PHP Markdown Extra when only #id and .class are used.)

For HTML and EPUB, all attributes except width and height (but including srcset and sizes)

are passed through as is. The other writers ignore attributes that are not supported by their

output format.

The width and height attributes on images are treated specially. When used without a unit,

the unit is assumed to be pixels. However, any of the following unit identifiers can be used: px,

cm, mm, in, inch and %. There must not be any spaces between the number and the unit. For

example:

![](file.jpg){ width=50% }

Dimensions are converted to inches for output in page-based formats like LaTeX.

Dimensions are converted to pixels for output in HTML-like formats. Use the --dpi

option to specify the number of pixels per inch. The default is 96dpi.

The % unit is generally relative to some available space. For example the above example

will render to the following.

HTML: <img href="file.jpg" style="width: 50%;" />

LaTeX: \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth,height=\textheight]{fi

le.jpg} (If you’re using a custom template, you need to configure graphicx as in

the default template.)

ConTeXt: \externalfigure[file.jpg][width=0.5\textwidth]

Some output formats have a notion of a class (ConTeXt) or a unique identifier (LaTeX \ca

ption), or both (HTML).

When no width or height attributes are specified, the fallback is to look at the image

resolution and the dpi metadata embedded in the image file.

6.18 Divs and Spans

Using the native_divs and native_spans extensions (see above), HTML syntax can be used

as part of markdown to create native Div and Span elements in the pandoc AST (as opposed to

raw HTML). However, there is also nicer syntax available:

6.18.0.1 Extension: fenced_divs

Allow special fenced syntax for native Div blocks. A Div starts with a fence containing at least

three consecutive colons plus some attributes. The attributes may optionally be followed by

another string of consecutive colons. The attribute syntax is exactly as in fenced code blocks

(see Extension: fenced_code_attributes). As with fenced code blocks, one can use either

attributes in curly braces or a single unbraced word, which will be treated as a class name. The

Div ends with another line containing a string of at least three consecutive colons. The fenced

Div should be separated by blank lines from preceding and following blocks.

Example:

::::: {#special .sidebar}

Here is a paragraph.

And another.

:::::

Fenced divs can be nested. Opening fences are distinguished because they must have

attributes:

::: Warning ::::::

This is a warning.

::: Danger

This is a warning within a warning.

:::

::::::::::::::::::

Fences without attributes are always closing fences. Unlike with fenced code blocks, the

number of colons in the closing fence need not match the number in the opening fence.

However, it can be helpful for visual clarity to use fences of different lengths to distinguish

nested divs from their parents.

6.18.0.2 Extension: bracketed_spans

A bracketed sequence of inlines, as one would use to begin a link, will be treated as a Span with

attributes if it is followed immediately by attributes:

[This is *some text*]{.class key="val"}

6.19 Footnotes

6.19.0.1 Extension: footnotes

Pandoc’s Markdown allows footnotes, using the following syntax:

Here is a footnote reference,[^1] and another.[^longnote]

[^1]: Here is the footnote.

[^longnote]: Here's one with multiple blocks.

Subsequent paragraphs are indented to show that they

belong to the previous footnote.

{ some.code }

The whole paragraph can be indented, or just the first

line. In this way, multi-paragraph footnotes work like

multi-paragraph list items.

This paragraph won't be part of the note, because it

isn't indented.

The identifiers in footnote references may not contain spaces, tabs, or newlines. These

identifiers are used only to correlate the footnote reference with the note itself; in the output,

footnotes will be numbered sequentially.

The footnotes themselves need not be placed at the end of the document. They may appear

anywhere except inside other block elements (lists, block quotes, tables, etc.). Each footnote

should be separated from surrounding content (including other footnotes) by blank lines.

6.19.0.2 Extension: inline_notes

Inline footnotes are also allowed (though, unlike regular notes, they cannot contain multiple

paragraphs). The syntax is as follows:

Here is an inline note.^[Inlines notes are easier to write, since

you don't have to pick an identifier and move down to type the

note.]

Inline and regular footnotes may be mixed freely.

6.20 Citations

6.20.0.1 Extension: citations

Using an external filter, pandoc-citeproc, pandoc can automatically generate citations and a

bibliography in a number of styles. Basic usage is

pandoc --filter pandoc-citeproc myinput.txt

In order to use this feature, you will need to specify a bibliography file using the bibliograph

y metadata field in a YAML metadata section, or --bibliography command line argument.

You can supply multiple --bibliography arguments or set bibliography metadata field to

YAML array, if you want to use multiple bibliography files. The bibliography may have any of

these formats:

Format File extension

BibLaTeX .bib

BibTeX .bibtex

Copac .copac

CSL JSON .json

CSL YAML .yaml

EndNote .enl

EndNote XML .xml

ISI .wos

MEDLINE .medline

MODS .mods

RIS .ris

Format File extension

Note that .bib can be used with both BibTeX and BibLaTeX files; use .bibtex to force BibTeX.

Note that pandoc-citeproc --bib2json and pandoc-citeproc --bib2yaml can

produce .json and .yaml files from any of the supported formats.

In-field markup: In BibTeX and BibLaTeX databases, pandoc-citeproc parses a subset of LaTeX

markup; in CSL YAML databases, pandoc Markdown; and in CSL JSON databases, an HTML-like

markup:

italics

bold

small capitals

subscript

superscript

prevent a phrase from being capitalized as title case

pandoc-citeproc -j and -y interconvert the CSL JSON and CSL YAML formats as far as

possible.

As an alternative to specifying a bibliography file using --bibliography or the YAML

metadata field bibliography, you can include the citation data directly in the references

field of the document’s YAML metadata. The field should contain an array of YAML-encoded

references, for example:

---

references:

- type: article-journal

id: WatsonCrick1953

author:

- family: Watson

given: J. D.

- family: Crick

given: F. H. C.

issued:

date-parts:

- - 1953

- 4

- 25

title: 'Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxy

ribose

nucleic acid'

title-short: Molecular structure of nucleic acids

container-title: Nature

volume: 171

issue: 4356

page: 737-738

DOI: 10.1038/171737a0

URL: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v171/n4356/abs/171737a0.h

tml

language: en-GB

...

(pandoc-citeproc --bib2yaml can produce these from a bibliography file in one of the

supported formats.)

Citations and references can be formatted using any style supported by the Citation Style

Language, listed in the Zotero Style Repository. These files are specified using the --csl option

or the csl metadata field. By default, pandoc-citeproc will use the Chicago Manual of Style

author-date format. The CSL project provides further information on finding and editing styles.

To make your citations hyperlinks to the corresponding bibliography entries, add link-citat

ions: true to your YAML metadata.

Citations go inside square brackets and are separated by semicolons. Each citation must have a

key, composed of ‘@’ + the citation identifier from the database, and may optionally have a

prefix, a locator, and a suffix. The citation key must begin with a letter, digit, or _, and may

contain alphanumerics, _, and internal punctuation characters (:.#$%&-+?<>~/). Here are

some examples:

Blah blah [see @doe99, pp. 33-35; also @smith04, chap. 1].

Blah blah [@doe99, pp. 33-35, 38-39 and *passim*].

Blah blah [@smith04; @doe99].

pandoc-citeproc detects locator terms in the CSL locale files. Either abbreviated or

unabbreviated forms are accepted. In the en-US locale, locator terms can be written in either

singular or plural forms, as book, bk./bks.; chapter, chap./chaps.; column, col./cols.; f

igure, fig./figs.; folio, fol./fols.; number, no./nos.; line, l./ll.; note, n./nn.; opu

s, op./opp.; page, p./pp.; paragraph, para./paras.; part, pt./pts.; section, sec./sec

s.; sub verbo, s.v./s.vv.; verse, v./vv.; volume, vol./vols.; ¶/¶¶; §/§§. If no locator

term is used, “page” is assumed.

pandoc-citeproc will use heuristics to distinguish the locator from the suffix. In complex

cases, the locator can be enclosed in curly braces (using pandoc-citeproc 0.15 and higher

only):

[@smith{ii, A, D-Z}, with a suffix]

[@smith, {pp. iv, vi-xi, (xv)-(xvii)} with suffix here]

A minus sign (-) before the @ will suppress mention of the author in the citation. This can be

useful when the author is already mentioned in the text:

Smith says blah [-@smith04].

You can also write an in-text citation, as follows:

@smith04 says blah.

@smith04 [p. 33] says blah.

If the style calls for a list of works cited, it will be placed in a div with id refs, if one exists:

::: #refs

:::

Otherwise, it will be placed at the end of the document. Generation of the bibliography can be

suppressed by setting suppress-bibliography: true in the YAML metadata.

If you wish the bibliography to have a section header, you can set reference-section-titl

e in the metadata, or put the header at the beginning of the div with id refs (if you are using it)

or at the end of your document:

last paragraph...

# References

The bibliography will be inserted after this header. Note that the unnumbered class will be

added to this header, so that the section will not be numbered.

If you want to include items in the bibliography without actually citing them in the body text,

you can define a dummy nocite metadata field and put the citations there:

---

nocite: |

@item1, @item2

...

@item3

In this example, the document will contain a citation for item3 only, but the bibliography will

contain entries for item1, item2, and item3.

It is possible to create a bibliography with all the citations, whether or not they appear in the

document, by using a wildcard:

---

nocite: |

...

For LaTeX output, you can also use natbib or biblatex to render the bibliography. In order to

do so, specify bibliography files as outlined above, and add --natbib or --biblatex

argument to pandoc invocation. Bear in mind that bibliography files have to be in respective

format (either BibTeX or BibLaTeX).

For more information, see the pandoc-citeproc man page.

6.21 Non-pandoc extensions

The following Markdown syntax extensions are not enabled by default in pandoc, but may be

enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name, where EXTENSION is the name of the

extension. Thus, for example, markdown+hard_line_breaks is Markdown with hard line

breaks.

6.21.0.1 Extension: old_dashes

Selects the pandoc <= 1.8.2.1 behavior for parsing smart dashes: - before a numeral is an en-

dash, and -- is an em-dash. This option only has an effect if smart is enabled. It is selected

automatically for textile input.

6.21.0.2 Extension: angle_brackets_escapable

Allow < and > to be backslash-escaped, as they can be in GitHub flavored Markdown but not

original Markdown. This is implied by pandoc’s default all_symbols_escapable.

6.21.0.3 Extension: lists_without_preceding_blankline

Allow a list to occur right after a paragraph, with no intervening blank space.

6.21.0.4 Extension: four_space_rule

Selects the pandoc <= 2.0 behavior for parsing lists, so that four spaces indent are needed for

list item continuation paragraphs.

6.21.0.5 Extension: spaced_reference_links

Allow whitespace between the two components of a reference link, for example,

[foo] [bar].

6.21.0.6 Extension: hard_line_breaks

Causes all newlines within a paragraph to be interpreted as hard line breaks instead of spaces.

6.21.0.7 Extension: ignore_line_breaks

Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being treated as spaces or as

hard line breaks. This option is intended for use with East Asian languages where spaces are

not used between words, but text is divided into lines for readability.

6.21.0.8 Extension: east_asian_line_breaks

Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being treated as spaces or as

hard line breaks, when they occur between two East Asian wide characters. This is a better

choice than ignore_line_breaks for texts that include a mix of East Asian wide characters

and other characters.

6.21.0.9 Extension: emoji

Parses textual emojis like :smile: as Unicode emoticons.

6.21.0.10 Extension: tex_math_single_backslash

Causes anything between $ and $ to be interpreted as inline TeX math, and anything

between \[ and \] to be interpreted as display TeX math. Note: a drawback of this extension is

that it precludes escaping ( and [.

6.21.0.11 Extension: tex_math_double_backslash

Causes anything between \$ and \$ to be interpreted as inline TeX math, and anything

between \\[ and \\] to be interpreted as display TeX math.

6.21.0.12 Extension: markdown_attribute

By default, pandoc interprets material inside block-level tags as Markdown. This extension

changes the behavior so that Markdown is only parsed inside block-level tags if the tags have

the attribute markdown=1.

6.21.0.13 Extension: mmd_title_block

Enables a MultiMarkdown style title block at the top of the document, for example:

Title: My title

Author: John Doe

Date: September 1, 2008

Comment: This is a sample mmd title block, with

a field spanning multiple lines.

See the MultiMarkdown documentation for details. If pandoc_title_block or yaml_metada

ta_block is enabled, it will take precedence over mmd_title_block.

6.21.0.14 Extension: abbreviations

Parses PHP Markdown Extra abbreviation keys, like

*[HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language

Note that the pandoc document model does not support abbreviations, so if this extension is

enabled, abbreviation keys are simply skipped (as opposed to being parsed as paragraphs).

6.21.0.15 Extension: autolink_bare_uris

Makes all absolute URIs into links, even when not surrounded by pointy braces <...>.

6.21.0.16 Extension: mmd_link_attributes

Parses multimarkdown style key-value attributes on link and image references. This extension

should not be confused with the link_attributes extension.

This is a reference ![image][ref] with multimarkdown attributes.

[ref]: http://path.to/image "Image title" width=20px height=30px

id=myId class="myClass1 myClass2"

6.21.0.17 Extension: mmd_header_identifiers

Parses multimarkdown style header identifiers (in square brackets, after the header but before

any trailing #s in an ATX header).

6.21.0.18 Extension: compact_definition_lists

Activates the definition list syntax of pandoc 1.12.x and earlier. This syntax differs from the one

described above under Definition lists in several respects:

No blank line is required between consecutive items of the definition list.

To get a “tight” or “compact” list, omit space between consecutive items; the space

between a term and its definition does not affect anything.

Lazy wrapping of paragraphs is not allowed: the entire definition must be indented four

spaces.

6.22 Markdown variants

In addition to pandoc’s extended Markdown, the following Markdown variants are supported:

markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)

footnotes, pipe_tables, raw_html, markdown_attribute, fenced_code_blocks,

definition_lists, intraword_underscores, header_attributes, link_attribu

tes, abbreviations, shortcut_reference_links, spaced_reference_links.

markdown_github (deprecated GitHub-Flavored Markdown)

pipe_tables, raw_html, fenced_code_blocks, auto_identifiers, gfm_auto_ide

ntifiers, backtick_code_blocks, autolink_bare_uris, space_in_atx_header,

intraword_underscores, strikeout, emoji, shortcut_reference_links, angle_

brackets_escapable, lists_without_preceding_blankline.

markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)

pipe_tables, raw_html, markdown_attribute, mmd_link_attributes, tex_math_

double_backslash, intraword_underscores, mmd_title_block, footnotes, defi

nition_lists, all_symbols_escapable, implicit_header_references, auto_id

entifiers, mmd_header_identifiers, shortcut_reference_links, implicit_fi

gures, superscript, subscript, backtick_code_blocks, spaced_reference_lin

ks, raw_attribute.

markdown_strict (Markdown.pl)

raw_html, shortcut_reference_links, spaced_reference_links.

We also support commonmark and gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown, which is implemented as

a set of extensions on commonmark).

Note, however, that commonmark and gfm have limited support for extensions. Only those

listed below (and smart and raw_tex) will work. The extensions can, however, all be

individually disabled. Also, raw_tex only affects gfm output, not input.

gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown)

pipe_tables, raw_html, fenced_code_blocks, auto_identifiers, gfm_auto_ide

ntifiers, backtick_code_blocks, autolink_bare_uris, space_in_atx_header,

intraword_underscores, strikeout, emoji, shortcut_reference_links, angle_

brackets_escapable, lists_without_preceding_blankline.

7 Producing slide shows with pandoc

You can use pandoc to produce an HTML + JavaScript slide presentation that can be viewed via

a web browser. There are five ways to do this, using S5, DZSlides, Slidy, Slideous, or reveal.js.

You can also produce a PDF slide show using LaTeX beamer, or slides shows in Microsoft

PowerPoint format.

Here’s the Markdown source for a simple slide show, habits.txt:

% Habits

% John Doe

% March 22, 2005

# In the morning

## Getting up

- Turn off alarm

- Get out of bed

## Breakfast

- Eat eggs

- Drink coffee

# In the evening

## Dinner

- Eat spaghetti

- Drink wine

------------------

![picture of spaghetti](images/spaghetti.jpg)

## Going to sleep

- Get in bed

- Count sheep

To produce an HTML/JavaScript slide show, simply type

pandoc -t FORMAT -s habits.txt -o habits.html

where FORMAT is either s5, slidy, slideous, dzslides, or revealjs.

For Slidy, Slideous, reveal.js, and S5, the file produced by pandoc with the -s/--standalone

option embeds a link to JavaScript and CSS files, which are assumed to be available at the

relative path s5/default (for S5), slideous (for Slideous), reveal.js (for reveal.js), or at the

Slidy website at w3.org (for Slidy). (These paths can be changed by setting the slidy-url, sl

ideous-url, revealjs-url, or s5-url variables; see Variables for slides, above.) For

DZSlides, the (relatively short) JavaScript and CSS are included in the file by default.

With all HTML slide formats, the --self-contained option can be used to produce a single

file that contains all of the data necessary to display the slide show, including linked scripts,

stylesheets, images, and videos.

To produce a PDF slide show using beamer, type

pandoc -t beamer habits.txt -o habits.pdf

Note that a reveal.js slide show can also be converted to a PDF by printing it to a file from the

browser.

To produce a Powerpoint slide show, type

pandoc habits.txt -o habits.pptx

7.1 Structuring the slide show

By default, the slide level is the highest header level in the hierarchy that is followed

immediately by content, and not another header, somewhere in the document. In the example

above, level 1 headers are always followed by level 2 headers, which are followed by content,

so 2 is the slide level. This default can be overridden using the --slide-level option.

The document is carved up into slides according to the following rules:

A horizontal rule always starts a new slide.

A header at the slide level always starts a new slide.

Headers below the slide level in the hierarchy create headers within a slide.

Headers above the slide level in the hierarchy create “title slides,” which just contain the

section title and help to break the slide show into sections.

Content above the slide level will not appear in the slide show.

A title page is constructed automatically from the document’s title block, if present. (In the

case of beamer, this can be disabled by commenting out some lines in the default

template.)

These rules are designed to support many different styles of slide show. If you don’t care about

structuring your slides into sections and subsections, you can just use level 1 headers for all

each slide. (In that case, level 1 will be the slide level.) But you can also structure the slide show

into sections, as in the example above.

Note: in reveal.js slide shows, if slide level is 2, a two-dimensional layout will be produced, with

level 1 headers building horizontally and level 2 headers building vertically. It is not

recommended that you use deeper nesting of section levels with reveal.js.

7.2 Incremental lists

By default, these writers produce lists that display “all at once.” If you want your lists to display

incrementally (one item at a time), use the -i option. If you want a particular list to depart from

the default, put it in a div block with class incremental or nonincremental. So, for example,

using the fenced div syntax, the following would be incremental regardless of the document

default:

::: incremental

- Eat spaghetti

- Drink wine

:::

::: nonincremental

- Eat spaghetti

- Drink wine

:::

While using incremental and nonincremental divs are the recommended method of

setting incremental lists on a per-case basis, an older method is also supported: putting lists

inside a blockquote will depart from the document default (that is, it will display incrementally

without the -i option and all at once with the -i option):

> - Eat spaghetti

> - Drink wine

Both methods allow incremental and nonincremental lists to be mixed in a single document.

7.3 Inserting pauses

You can add “pauses” within a slide by including a paragraph containing three dots, separated

by spaces:

# Slide with a pause

content before the pause

. . .

content after the pause

7.4 Styling the slides

You can change the style of HTML slides by putting customized CSS files in $DATADIR/s5/def

ault (for S5), $DATADIR/slidy (for Slidy), or $DATADIR/slideous (for Slideous), where $DA

TADIR is the user data directory (see --data-dir, above). The originals may be found in

pandoc’s system data directory (generally $CABALDIR/pandoc-VERSION/s5/default).

Pandoc will look there for any files it does not find in the user data directory.

For dzslides, the CSS is included in the HTML file itself, and may be modified there.

All reveal.js configuration options can be set through variables. For example, themes can be

used by setting the theme variable:

-V theme=moon

Or you can specify a custom stylesheet using the --css option.

To style beamer slides, you can specify a theme, colortheme, fonttheme, innertheme, and o

utertheme, using the -V option:

pandoc -t beamer habits.txt -V theme:Warsaw -o habits.pdf

Note that header attributes will turn into slide attributes (on a <div> or <section>) in HTML

slide formats, allowing you to style individual slides. In beamer, the only header attribute that

affects slides is the allowframebreaks class, which sets the allowframebreaks option,

causing multiple slides to be created if the content overfills the frame. This is recommended

especially for bibliographies:

# References {.allowframebreaks}

7.5 Speaker notes

Speaker notes are supported in reveal.js and PowerPoint (pptx) output. You can add notes to

your Markdown document thus:

::: notes

This is my note.

- It can contain Markdown

- like this list

:::

To show the notes window in reveal.js, press s while viewing the presentation. Speaker notes in

PowerPoint will be available, as usual, in handouts and presenter view.

Notes are not yet supported for other slide formats, but the notes will not appear on the slides

themselves.

7.6 Columns

To put material in side by side columns, you can use a native div container with class columns,

containing two or more div containers with class column and a width attribute:

:::::::::::::: {.columns}

::: {.column width="40%"}

contents...

:::

::: {.column width="60%"}

contents...

:::

::::::::::::::

7.7 Frame attributes in beamer

Sometimes it is necessary to add the LaTeX [fragile] option to a frame in beamer (for

example, when using the minted environment). This can be forced by adding the fragile

class to the header introducing the slide:

# Fragile slide {.fragile}

All of the other frame attributes described in Section 8.1 of the Beamer User’s Guide may also

be used: allowdisplaybreaks, allowframebreaks, b, c, t, environment, label, plain, sh

rink, standout, noframenumbering.

7.8 Background in reveal.js and beamer

Background images can be added to self-contained reveal.js slideshows and to beamer

slideshows.

For the same image on every slide, use the configuration option background-image either in

the YAML metadata block or as a command-line variable. (There are no other options in

beamer and the rest of this section concerns reveal.js slideshows.)

For reveal.js, you can instead use the reveal.js-native option parallaxBackgroundImage. You

can also set parallaxBackgroundHorizontal and parallaxBackgroundVertical the

same way and must also set parallaxBackgroundSize to have your values take effect.

To set an image for a particular reveal.js slide, add {data-background-image="/path/to/i

mage"} to the first slide-level header on the slide (which may even be empty).

In reveal.js’s overview mode, the parallaxBackgroundImage will show up only on the first slide.

Other reveal.js background settings also work on individual slides, including data-backgroun

d-size, data-background-repeat, data-background-color, data-transition, and da

ta-transition-speed.

See the reveal.js documentation for more details.

For example in reveal.js:

---

title: My Slideshow

parallaxBackgroundImage: /path/to/my/background_image.png

---

## Slide One

Slide 1 has background_image.png as its background.

## {data-background-image="/path/to/special_image.jpg"}

Slide 2 has a special image for its background, even though the heade

r has no content.

8 Creating EPUBs with pandoc

8.1 EPUB Metadata

EPUB metadata may be specified using the --epub-metadata option, but if the source

document is Markdown, it is better to use a YAML metadata block. Here is an example:

---

title:

- type: main

text: My Book

- type: subtitle

text: An investigation of metadata

creator:

- role: author

text: John Smith

- role: editor

text: Sarah Jones

identifier:

- scheme: DOI

text: doi:10.234234.234/33

publisher: My Press

ibooks:

version: 1.3.4

...

The following fields are recognized:

identifier

Either a string value or an object with fields text and scheme. Valid values for scheme

are ISBN-10, GTIN-13, UPC, ISMN-10, DOI, LCCN, GTIN-14, ISBN-13, Legal deposit

number, URN, OCLC, ISMN-13, ISBN-A, JP, OLCC.

title

Either a string value, or an object with fields file-as and type, or a list of such objects.

Valid values for type are main, subtitle, short, collection, edition, extended.

creator

Either a string value, or an object with fields role, file-as, and text, or a list of such

objects. Valid values for role are MARC relators, but pandoc will attempt to translate the

human-readable versions (like “author” and “editor”) to the appropriate marc relators.

contributor

Same format as creator.

date

A string value in YYYY-MM-DD format. (Only the year is necessary.) Pandoc will attempt to

convert other common date formats.

lang (or legacy: language)

A string value in BCP 47 format. Pandoc will default to the local language if nothing is

specified.

subject

A string value or a list of such values.

description

A string value.

type

A string value.

format

A string value.

relation

A string value.

coverage

A string value.

rights

A string value.

cover-image

A string value (path to cover image).

css (or legacy: stylesheet)

A string value (path to CSS stylesheet).

page-progression-direction

Either ltr or rtl. Specifies the page-progression-direction attribute for the spine

element.

ibooks

iBooks-specific metadata, with the following fields:

version: (string)

specified-fonts: true|false (default false)

ipad-orientation-lock: portrait-only|landscape-only

iphone-orientation-lock: portrait-only|landscape-only

binding: true|false (default true)

scroll-axis: vertical|horizontal|default

8.2 The epub:type attribute

For epub3 output, you can mark up the header that corresponds to an EPUB chapter using the

epub:type attribute. For example, to set the attribute to the value prologue, use this

markdown:

# My chapter {epub:type=prologue}

Which will result in:

<h1>My chapter</h1>

Pandoc will output <body epub:type="bodymatter">, unless you use one of the following

values, in which case either frontmatter or backmatter will be output.

epub:type of first section epub:type of body

prologue frontmatter

abstract frontmatter

acknowledgments frontmatter

dedication frontmatter

foreword frontmatter

halftitle, frontmatter

introduction frontmatter

preface frontmatter

seriespage frontmatter

titlepage frontmatter

afterword backmatter

appendix backmatter

colophon backmatter

conclusion backmatter

epigraph backmatter

epub:type of first section epub:type of body

8.3 Linked media

By default, pandoc will download media referenced from any <img>, <audio>, <video> or <so

urce> element present in the generated EPUB, and include it in the EPUB container, yielding a

completely self-contained EPUB. If you want to link to external media resources instead, use

raw HTML in your source and add data-external="1" to the tag with the src attribute. For

example:

<source src="http://example.com/music/toccata.mp3"

data-external="1" type="audio/mpeg">

</source>

</audio>

9 Syntax highlighting

Pandoc will automatically highlight syntax in fenced code blocks that are marked with a

language name. The Haskell library skylighting is used for highlighting. Currently highlighting

is supported only for HTML, EPUB, Docx, Ms, and LaTeX/PDF output. To see a list of language

names that pandoc will recognize, type pandoc --list-highlight-languages.

The color scheme can be selected using the --highlight-style option. The default color

scheme is pygments, which imitates the default color scheme used by the Python library

pygments (though pygments is not actually used to do the highlighting). To see a list of

highlight styles, type pandoc --list-highlight-styles.

If you are not satisfied with the predefined styles, you can use --print-highlight-style to

generate a JSON .theme file which can be modified and used as the argument to --highligh

t-style. To get a JSON version of the pygments style, for example:

pandoc --print-highlight-style pygments > my.theme

Then edit my.theme and use it like this:

pandoc --highlight-style my.theme

If you are not satisfied with the built-in highlighting, or you want highlight a language that isn’t

supported, you can use the --syntax-definition option to load a KDE-style XML syntax

definition file. Before writing your own, have a look at KDE’s repository of syntax definitions.

To disable highlighting, use the --no-highlight option.

10 Custom Styles

Custom styles can be used in the docx and ICML formats.

10.1 Input

The docx reader, by default, only reads those styles that it can convert into pandoc elements,

either by direct conversion or interpreting the derivation of the input document’s styles.

By enabling the styles extension in the docx reader (-f docx+styles), you can produce

output that maintains the styles of the input document, using the custom-style class.

Paragraph styles are interpreted as divs, while character styles are interpreted as spans.

For example, using the custom-style-reference.docx file in the test directory, we have the

following different outputs:

Without the +styles extension:

$ pandoc test/docx/custom-style-reference.docx -f docx -t markdown

This is some text.

This is text with an *emphasized* text style. And this is text with a

**strengthened** text style.

> Here is a styled paragraph that inherits from Block Text.

And with the extension:

$ pandoc test/docx/custom-style-reference.docx -f docx+styles -t mark

down

::: {custom-style="FirstParagraph"}

This is some text.

:::

::: {custom-style="BodyText"}

This is text with an [emphasized]{custom-style="Emphatic"} text style

And this is text with a [strengthened]{custom-style="Strengthened"}

text style.

:::

::: {custom-style="MyBlockStyle"}

> Here is a styled paragraph that inherits from Block Text.

:::

With these custom styles, you can use your input document as a reference-doc while creating

docx output (see below), and maintain the same styles in your input and output files.

10.2 Output

By default, pandoc’s docx and ICML output applies a predefined set of styles for blocks such as

paragraphs and block quotes, and uses largely default formatting (italics, bold) for inlines. This

will work for most purposes, especially alongside a reference.docx file. However, if you need

to apply your own styles to blocks, or match a preexisting set of styles, pandoc allows you to

define custom styles for blocks and text using divs and spans, respectively.

If you define a div or span with the attribute custom-style, pandoc will apply your specified

style to the contained elements. So, for example using the bracketed_spans syntax,

[Get out]{custom-style="Emphatically"}, he said.

would produce a docx file with “Get out” styled with character style Emphatically. Similarly,

using the fenced_divs syntax,

Dickinson starts the poem simply:

::: {custom-style="Poetry"}

| A Bird came down the Walk---

| He did not know I saw---

:::

would style the two contained lines with the Poetry paragraph style.

For docx output, styles will be defined in the output file as inheriting from normal text, if the

styles are not yet in your reference.docx. If they are already defined, pandoc will not alter the

definition.

This feature allows for greatest customization in conjunction with pandoc filters. If you want all

paragraphs after block quotes to be indented, you can write a filter to apply the styles

necessary. If you want all italics to be transformed to the Emphasis character style (perhaps to

change their color), you can write a filter which will transform all italicized inlines to inlines

within an Emphasis custom-style span.

11 Custom writers

Pandoc can be extended with custom writers written in lua. (Pandoc includes a lua interpreter,

so lua need not be installed separately.)

To use a custom writer, simply specify the path to the lua script in place of the output format.

For example:

pandoc -t data/sample.lua

Creating a custom writer requires writing a lua function for each possible element in a pandoc

document. To get a documented example which you can modify according to your needs, do

pandoc --print-default-data-file sample.lua

12 A note on security

If you use pandoc to convert user-contributed content in a web application, here are some

things to keep in mind:

1. Although pandoc itself will not create or modify any files other than those you explicitly

ask it create (with the exception of temporary files used in producing PDFs), a filter or

custom writer could in principle do anything on your file system. Please audit filters and

custom writers very carefully before using them.

2. If your application uses pandoc as a Haskell library (rather than shelling out to the

executable), it is possible to use it in a mode that fully isolates pandoc from your file

system, by running the pandoc operations in the PandocPure monad. See the document

Using the pandoc API for more details.

3. Pandoc’s parsers can exhibit pathological performance on some corner cases. It is wise to

put any pandoc operations under a timeout, to avoid DOS attacks that exploit these

issues. If you are using the pandoc executable, you can add the command line options +R

TS -M512M -RTS (for example) to limit the heap size to 512MB.

4. The HTML generated by pandoc is not guaranteed to be safe. If raw_html is enabled for

the Markdown input, users can inject arbitrary HTML. Even if raw_html is disabled, users

can include dangerous content in attributes for headers, spans, and code blocks. To be

safe, you should run all the generated HTML through an HTML sanitizer.

13 Authors

or greater. This software carries no warranty of any kind. (See COPYRIGHT for full copyright

and warranty notices.) For a full list of contributors, see the file AUTHORS.md in the pandoc

source code.

1. To make subtitle work with other LaTeX document classes, you can add the following

to header-includes:

\providecommand{\subtitle}[1]{%

\usepackage{titling}

\posttitle{%

\par\large#1\end{center}}

}

↩

2. The point of this rule is to ensure that normal paragraphs starting with people’s initials,

B. Russell was an English philosopher.

do not get treated as list items.

This rule will not prevent

from being interpreted as a list item. In this case, a backslash escape can be used:

(C\) 2007 Joe Smith

↩

3. I have been influenced by the suggestions of David Wheeler.↩

4. This scheme is due to Michel Fortin, who proposed it on the Markdown discussion list.↩

5. To see why laziness is incompatible with relaxing the requirement of a blank line between

items, consider the following example:

bar

: definition

foo

: definition

Is this a single list item with two definitions of “bar,” the first of which is lazily wrapped, or

two list items? To remove the ambiguity we must either disallow lazy wrapping or require

a blank line between list items. ↩

Pandoc User’s Guide MANUAL

Navigation menu

Versions of this User Manual:

Views

Navigation