Pandoc User's Guide MANUAL
pandoc_MANUAL
User Manual:
Open the PDF directly: View PDF 
.
Page Count: 66
| Download | |
| Open PDF In Browser | View PDF |
Pandoc User’s Guide
John MacFarlane
July 17, 2016
Contents
Synopsis
4
Description
4
Using pandoc
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
Creating a PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6
Options
6
General options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6
Reader options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
General writer options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Options affecting specific writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
Citation rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14
Math rendering in HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15
Options for wrapper scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16
Templates
16
Variables set by pandoc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
Language variables
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
Variables for slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
Variables for LaTeX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
Variables for ConTeXt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19
Variables for man pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
Using variables in templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
1
Pandoc User’s Guide
Contents
Pandoc’s Markdown
21
Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
Paragraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
Headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
Setext-style headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
ATX-style headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
Header identifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
23
Block quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
25
Verbatim (code) blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
Indented code blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
Fenced code blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27
Line blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
28
Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
Bullet lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
The four-space rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
30
Ordered lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
31
Definition lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
32
Numbered example lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
33
Compact and loose lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34
Ending a list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34
Horizontal rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
35
Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
35
Metadata blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
Backslash escapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42
Smart punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42
Inline formatting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
Emphasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
Strikeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
Superscripts and subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
Verbatim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
Small caps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
Math . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
v 1.17.2
2
Pandoc User’s Guide
Raw HTML
Contents
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
46
Raw TeX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
47
LaTeX macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
48
Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
48
Automatic links
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
48
Inline links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
48
Reference links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
49
Internal links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
50
Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
50
Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
52
Non-pandoc extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
56
Markdown variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
58
Extensions with formats other than Markdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
58
Producing slide shows with pandoc
59
Structuring the slide show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
60
Incremental lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61
Inserting pauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61
Styling the slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61
Speaker notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
62
Frame attributes in beamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
62
Creating EPUBs with pandoc
62
EPUB Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
62
Linked media
64
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Literate Haskell support
64
Syntax highlighting
65
Custom writers
65
Authors
65
v 1.17.2
3
Pandoc User’s Guide
Description
Synopsis
pandoc [options] [input-file]…
Description
Pandoc is a Haskell library for converting from one markup format to another, and a command-line tool
that uses this library. It can read Markdown, CommonMark, PHP Markdown Extra, GitHub-Flavored
Markdown, MultiMarkdown, and (subsets of) Textile, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, MediaWiki
markup, TWiki markup, Haddock markup, OPML, Emacs Org mode, DocBook, txt2tags, EPUB, ODT
and Word docx; and it can write plain text, Markdown, CommonMark, PHP Markdown Extra, GitHubFlavored Markdown, MultiMarkdown, reStructuredText, XHTML, HTML5, LaTeX (including beamer
slide shows), ConTeXt, RTF, OPML, DocBook, OpenDocument, ODT, Word docx, GNU Texinfo, MediaWiki markup, DokuWiki markup, ZimWiki markup, Haddock markup, EPUB (v2 or v3), FictionBook2,
Textile, groff man pages, Emacs Org mode, AsciiDoc, InDesign ICML, TEI Simple, and Slidy, Slideous,
DZSlides, reveal.js or S5 HTML slide shows. It can also produce PDF output on systems where LaTeX,
ConTeXt, or wkhtmltopdf is installed.
Pandoc’s enhanced version of Markdown includes syntax for footnotes, tables, flexible ordered lists,
definition lists, fenced code blocks, superscripts and subscripts, strikeout, metadata blocks, automatic
tables of contents, embedded LaTeX math, citations, and Markdown inside HTML block elements.
(These enhancements, described below under Pandoc’s Markdown, can be disabled using the markdown_strict input or output format.)
In contrast to most existing tools for converting Markdown to HTML, which use regex substitutions,
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, 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.
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.
Using pandoc
If no input-file is specified, input is read from stdin. Otherwise, the input-files are concatenated (with a
blank line between each) and used as input. Output goes to stdout by default (though output to stdout
is disabled for the odt, docx, epub, and epub3 output formats). For output to a file, use the -o option:
pandoc -o output.html input.txt
v 1.17.2
4
Pandoc User’s Guide
Description
By default, pandoc produces a document fragment, not a standalone document with a proper header
and footer. To produce a standalone document, 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.
Instead of a 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
If multiple input files are given, pandoc will concatenate them all (with blank lines between them) before
parsing. This feature is disabled for binary input formats such as EPUB, odt, and docx.
The format of the input and output can be specified explicitly using command-line options. The input format can be specified using the -r/--read or -f/--from options, the output format using the
-w/--write or -t/--to options. 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 output formats are listed below under the -t/--to option. Supported input formats are
listed below under the -f/--from option. Note that the rst, textile, latex, and html readers are not
complete; there are some constructs that they do not parse.
If the input or output format is not specified explicitly, pandoc will attempt to guess it from the extensions of the input and output 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 unless explicitly specified.
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.
v 1.17.2
5
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
Creating a PDF
To produce a PDF, specify an output file with a .pdf extension. By default, pandoc will use LaTeX to
convert it to PDF:
pandoc test.txt -o test.pdf
Production of a PDF requires that a LaTeX engine be installed (see --latex-engine, below), and assumes that the following LaTeX packages are available: amsfonts, amsmath, lm, ifxetex, ifluatex,
eurosym, listings (if the --listings option is used), fancyvrb, longtable, booktabs, graphicx and
grffile (if the document contains images), hyperref, ulem, geometry (with the geometry variable set),
setspace (with linestretch), and babel (with lang). The use of xelatex or lualatex as the LaTeX engine requires fontspec; xelatex uses mathspec, polyglossia (with lang), xecjk, and bidi (with the
dir variable set). The upquote and microtype packages are used if available, and csquotes will be used
for smart punctuation if added to the template or included in any header file. The natbib, biblatex,
bibtex, and biber packages can optionally be used for citation rendering. These are included with all
recent versions of TeX Live.
Alternatively, pandoc can use ConTeXt or wkhtmltopdf to create a PDF. To do this, specify an output
file with a .pdf extension, as before, but add -t context or -t html5 to the command line.
PDF output can be controlled using variables for LaTeX (if LaTeX is used) and variables for ConTeXt (if
ConTeXt is used). If wkhtmltopdf is used, then the variables margin-left, margin-right, margin-top,
margin-bottom, and papersize will affect the output, as will --css.
Options
General options
-f FORMAT, -r FORMAT, --from=FORMAT, --read=FORMAT Specify input format. FORMAT
can be native (native Haskell), json (JSON version of native AST), markdown (pandoc’s extended Markdown), markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown), markdown_phpextra
(PHP Markdown Extra), markdown_github (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), markdown_mmd
(MultiMarkdown), commonmark (CommonMark Markdown), textile (Textile), rst (reStructuredText), html (HTML), docbook (DocBook), t2t (txt2tags), docx (docx), odt (ODT), epub
(EPUB), opml (OPML), org (Emacs Org mode), mediawiki (MediaWiki markup), twiki
(TWiki markup), haddock (Haddock markup), or latex (LaTeX). If +lhs is appended to
markdown, rst, latex, or html, the input will be treated as literate Haskell source: see Literate Haskell support, below. Markdown syntax extensions can be individually enabled or
disabled by appending +EXTENSION or -EXTENSION to the format name. So, for example,
markdown_strict+footnotes+definition_lists is strict Markdown with footnotes and definition lists enabled, and markdown-pipe_tables+hard_line_breaks is pandoc’s Markdown
without pipe tables and with hard line breaks. See Pandoc’s Markdown, below, for a list of
extensions and their names.
v 1.17.2
6
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
-t FORMAT, -w FORMAT, --to=FORMAT, --write=FORMAT Specify output format.
FORMAT can be native (native Haskell), json (JSON version of native AST), plain (plain text),
markdown (pandoc’s extended Markdown), markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown),
markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra), markdown_github (GitHub-Flavored Markdown),
markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown), commonmark (CommonMark Markdown), rst (reStructuredText), html (XHTML), html5 (HTML5), latex (LaTeX), beamer (LaTeX beamer slide show),
context (ConTeXt), man (groff man), mediawiki (MediaWiki markup), dokuwiki (DokuWiki
markup), zimwiki (ZimWiki markup), textile (Textile), org (Emacs Org mode), texinfo
(GNU Texinfo), opml (OPML), docbook (DocBook 4), docbook5 (DocBook 5), opendocument
(OpenDocument), odt (OpenOffice text document), docx (Word docx), haddock (Haddock
markup), rtf (rich text format), epub (EPUB v2 book), epub3 (EPUB v3), fb2 (FictionBook2
e-book), asciidoc (AsciiDoc), icml (InDesign ICML), tei (TEI Simple), slidy (Slidy HTML
and javascript slide show), slideous (Slideous 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), or the path of a custom lua writer (see Custom writers,
below). Note that odt, epub, and epub3 output will not be directed to stdout ; an output filename
must be specified using the -o/--output option. If +lhs is appended to markdown, rst, latex,
beamer, html, or html5, the output will be rendered as literate Haskell source: see Literate
Haskell support, below. Markdown syntax extensions can be individually enabled or disabled by
appending +EXTENSION or -EXTENSION to the format name, as described above under -f.
-o FILE, --output=FILE Write output to FILE instead of stdout. If FILE is -, output will go to stdout.
(Exception: if the output format is odt, docx, epub, or epub3, output to stdout is disabled.)
--data-dir=DIRECTORY Specify the user data directory to search for pandoc data files. If this op-
tion is not specified, the default user data directory will be used. This is, in Unix:
$HOME/.pandoc
in Windows XP:
C:\Documents And Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\pandoc
and in Windows Vista or later:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\pandoc
You can find the default user data directory on your system by looking at the output of pandoc
--version. A reference.odt, reference.docx, epub.css, templates, slidy, slideous, or s5
directory placed in this directory will override pandoc’s normal defaults.
--bash-completion Generate a bash completion script. To enable bash completion with pandoc, add
this to your .bashrc:
eval "$(pandoc --bash-completion)"
v 1.17.2
7
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
--verbose Give verbose debugging output. Currently this only has an effect with PDF output.
-v, --version Print version.
-h, --help Show usage message.
Reader options
-R, --parse-raw Parse untranslatable HTML codes and LaTeX environments as raw HTML or LaTeX,
instead of ignoring them. Affects only HTML and LaTeX input. Raw HTML can be printed in
Markdown, reStructuredText, Emacs Org mode, HTML, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, reveal.js, and
S5 output; raw LaTeX can be printed in Markdown, reStructuredText, Emacs Org mode, LaTeX,
and ConTeXt output. The default is for the readers to omit untranslatable HTML codes and LaTeX environments. (The LaTeX reader does pass through untranslatable LaTeX commands, even
if -R is not specified.)
-S, --smart Produce typographically correct output, converting straight quotes to curly quotes, --- to
em-dashes, -- to en-dashes, and ... to ellipses. Nonbreaking spaces are inserted after certain
abbreviations, such as “Mr.” (Note: This option is selected automatically when the output format
is latex or context, unless --no-tex-ligatures is used. It has no effect for latex input.)
--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 is selected automatically for textile input.
--base-header-level=NUMBER Specify the base level for headers (defaults to 1).
--indented-code-classes=CLASSES Specify classes to use for indented code blocks–for example,
perl,numberLines or haskell. 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.
--filter=EXECUTABLE 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
v 1.17.2
8
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
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.
Note that the EXECUTABLE will be sought in the user’s PATH, and not in the working directory, if
no directory is provided. If you want to run a script in the working directory, preface the filename
with ./.
-M KEY [=VAL], --metadata=KEY [:VAL] Set the metadata field KEY to the value VAL. A value spec-
ified on the command line overrides a value specified in the document. 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).
--normalize Normalize the document after reading: merge adjacent Str or Emph elements, for exam-
ple, and remove repeated Spaces.
-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. This option only affects the docx reader.
--extract-media=DIR Extract images and other media contained in a docx or epub container to the
path DIR, creating it if necessary, and adjust the images references in the document so they point
to the extracted files. This option only affects the docx and epub readers.
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.
v 1.17.2
9
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
--template=FILE Use FILE as a custom template for the generated document. Implies --standalone.
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=special 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-dir). 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 ren-
dering 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 out-
put FORMAT. (See -t for a list of possible FORMAT s.) 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.
--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 80). 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).
--no-wrap Deprecated synonym for --wrap=none.
--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, docx, and rst, an instruction to create one) in the output document. This option
has no effect on man, docbook, docbook5, slidy, slideous, s5, or odt 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).
--no-highlight Disables syntax highlighting for code blocks and inlines, even when a language at-
tribute is given.
--highlight-style=STYLE Specifies the coloring style to be used in highlighted source code. Op-
tions are pygments (the default), kate, monochrome, espresso, zenburn, haddock, and tango.
For more information on syntax highlighting in pandoc, see Syntax highlighting, below.
v 1.17.2
10
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
-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 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 docu-
ment body (before the tag in HTML, or the \end{document} command in LaTeX). This
option can be used repeatedly to include multiple files. They will be included in the order specified. Implies --standalone.
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. 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 html, html5, html+lhs, html5+lhs, s5, slidy, 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). Limitation: resources that are loaded dynamically
through JavaScript cannot be incorporated; as a result, --self-contained does not work with
--mathjax, and some advanced features (e.g. zoom or speaker notes) may not work in an offline
“self-contained” reveal.js slide show.
--html-q-tags Use tags for quotes in HTML.
--ascii Use only ascii characters in output. Currently supported only for HTML output (which uses
numerical entities instead of UTF-8 when this option is selected).
--reference-links Use reference-style links, rather than inline links, in writing Markdown or re-
StructuredText. By default inline links are used.
--atx-headers Use ATX-style headers in Markdown and asciidoc output. The default is to use setext-
style headers for levels 1-2, and then ATX headers.
--chapters Treat top-level headers as chapters in LaTeX, ConTeXt, and DocBook output. When the
LaTeX document class is set to report, book, or memoir (unless the article option is specified),
this option is implied. If beamer is the output format, top-level headers will become \part{..}.
-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 --number-sections is specified.
v 1.17.2
11
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
--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.
--no-tex-ligatures Do not use the TeX ligatures for quotation marks, apostrophes, and dashes
(`...', ``..'', --, ---) when writing or reading LaTeX or ConTeXt. In reading LaTeX, parse
the characters `, ', and - literally, rather than parsing ligatures for quotation marks and dashes.
In writing LaTeX or ConTeXt, print unicode quotation mark and dash characters literally,
rather than converting them to the standard ASCII TeX ligatures. Note: normally --smart
is selected automatically for LaTeX and ConTeXt output, but it must be specified explicitly if
--no-tex-ligatures is selected. If you use literal curly quotes, dashes, and ellipses in your
source, then you may want to use --no-tex-ligatures without --smart.
--listings Use the listings package for LaTeX code blocks
-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, slideous, 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. The default is to set
the slide level based on the contents of the document; see Structuring the slide show.
--section-divs Wrap sections in tags (or tags in HTML5), and attach identifiers to
the enclosing (or ) rather than the header itself. See Header identifiers, below.
--email-obfuscation=none|javascript|references Specify a method for obfuscating mailto:
links in HTML documents. none leaves mailto: 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 automatically generated identifiers in HTML
and DocBook output, and to footnote numbers in Markdown 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 --standalone.
-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.
--reference-odt=FILE Use the specified file as a style reference in producing an ODT. For best re-
sults, 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.
v 1.17.2
12
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
--reference-docx=FILE Use the specified file as a style reference in producing a docx file. 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 --data-dir). If this is not found either, sensible defaults will be used. The following styles
are 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, Block Text, Footnote Text, Definition Term, Definition, Caption, Table Caption, Image Caption, Figure, Figure With Caption, TOC Heading; [character] Default Paragraph Font,
Body Text Char, Verbatim Char, Footnote Reference, Hyperlink; [table] Normal Table.
--epub-stylesheet=FILE Use the specified CSS file to style the EPUB. If no stylesheet is specified,
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.
--epub-cover-image=FILE Use the specified image as the EPUB cover. It is recommended that the
image be less than 1000px in width and height. Note that in a Markdown source document you
can also specify cover-image in a YAML metadata block (see EPUB Metadata, below).
--epub-metadata=FILE Look in the specified XML file for metadata for the EPUB. The file should
contain a series of Dublin Core elements. For example:
Creative Commons
es-AR
By default, pandoc will include the following metadata elements: (from the document title), (from the document authors), (from the document date,
which should be in ISO 8601 format), (from the lang variable, or, if is not set, the
locale), and (a randomly generated UUID). Any of these may be
overridden by elements in the metadata file.
Note: if the source document is Markdown, a YAML metadata block in the document can be used
instead. See below under EPUB Metadata.
--epub-embed-font=FILE Embed the specified font in the EPUB. This option can be repeated to em-
bed 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 --epub-stylesheet):
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Regular.ttf");
}
v 1.17.2
13
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
@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.
--latex-engine=pdflatex|lualatex|xelatex Use the specified LaTeX 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.
--latex-engine-opt=STRING Use the given string as a command-line argument to the latex-engine.
If used multiple times, the arguments are provided with spaces between them. Note that no
check for duplicate options is done.
Citation rendering
--bibliography=FILE Set the bibliography field in the document’s metadata to FILE, overrid-
ing 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 --biblatex is also supplied, pandoc-citeproc is not used, making this equivalent to
--metadata 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.
v 1.17.2
14
Pandoc User’s Guide
Options
--citation-abbreviations=FILE Set the citation-abbreviations field in the document’s meta-
data to FILE, overriding any value set in the metadata. (This is equivalent to --metadata
citation-abbreviations=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-citeproc
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-citeproc filter or with PDF output. It is intended for use in producing a LaTeX file that
can be processed with bibtex or biber.
Math rendering in HTML
-m [URL], --latexmathml[=URL] Use the LaTeXMathML script to display embedded TeX math in
HTML output. To insert a link to a local copy of the LaTeXMathML.js script, provide a URL. If
no URL is provided, the contents of the script will be inserted directly into the HTML header,
preserving portability at the price of efficiency. If you plan to use math on several pages, it is
much better to link to a copy of the script, so it can be cached.
--mathml[=URL] Convert TeX math to MathML (in docbook, docbook5, html and html5). In stan-
dalone html output, a small javascript (or a link to such a script if a URL is supplied) will be
inserted that allows the MathML to be viewed on some browsers.
--jsmath[=URL] Use jsMath to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should point
to the jsMath load script (e.g. jsMath/easy/load.js); if provided, it will be linked to in the
header of standalone HTML documents. If a URL is not provided, no link to the jsMath load
script will be inserted; it is then up to the author to provide such a link in the HTML template.
--mathjax[=URL] Use MathJax to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should
point to the MathJax.js load script. If a URL is not provided, a link to the MathJax CDN will be
inserted.
--gladtex Enclose TeX math in tags in HTML output. These can then be processed by gladTeX
to produce links to images of the typeset formulas.
--mimetex[=URL] Render TeX math using the mimeTeX CGI script. If URL is not specified, it is
assumed that the script is at /cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi.
--webtex[=URL] Render TeX formulas using an external script that converts TeX formulas to images.
The formula will be concatenated with the URL provided. If URL is not specified, the Google Chart
API will be used. Note: the --webtex option will affect Markdown output as well as HTML.
--katex[=URL] Use KaTeX to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should point
to the katex.js load script. If a URL is not provided, a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted.
--katex-stylesheet=URL The URL should point to the katex.css stylesheet. If this option is not
specified, a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted. Note that this option does not imply --katex.
v 1.17.2
15
Pandoc User’s Guide
Templates
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
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.beamer template, if you
use -t beamer, or the default.context template, if you use -t context).
• docx has no template (however, you can use --reference-docx to customize the output).
Templates contain variables, which allow for the inclusion of arbitrary information at any point in the
file. Variables may be set within the document using YAML metadata blocks. They may also be set at
the command line using the -V/--variable option: variables set in this way override metadata fields
with the same name.
v 1.17.2
16
Pandoc User’s Guide
Templates
Variables set by pandoc
Some variables are set automatically by pandoc. These vary somewhat depending on the output format,
but include metadata fields as well as the following:
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 KOMAScript series (scrartcl, scrreprt, scrbook).1
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 and docx)
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
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}}
}
v 1.17.2
17
Pandoc User’s Guide
Templates
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 context-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.
otherlangs a list of other languages used in the document in the YAML metadata, according to BCP
47. For example: otherlangs: [en-GB, fr]. This is automatically generated from the lang attributes in all spans and divs but can be overridden. Currently only used by LaTeX through the
generated babel-otherlangs and polyglossia-otherlangs variables. The LaTeX writer outputs polyglossia commands in the text but the babel-newcommands variable contains mappings
for them to the corresponding babel.
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
--latex-engine=xelatex).
Variables for slides
Variables are available for producing slide shows with pandoc, including all reveal.js configuration options.
slidy-url base URL for Slidy documents (defaults to http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy2)
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
navigation controls navigation symbols in beamer documents (default is empty for no navigation sym-
bols; other valid values are frame, vertical, and horizontal).
section-titles enables on “title pages” for new sections in beamer documents (default = true).
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
v 1.17.2
18
Pandoc User’s Guide
Templates
classoption option for document class, e.g. oneside; may be repeated for multiple options
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 (oth-
erwise 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
mathpazo provides Palatino with old-style figures and true small caps; may be repeated for multiple options
mainfont, 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, sansfontoptions, monofontoptions, mathfontoptions, CJKoptions options
to use with mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJKmainfont in xelatex 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)
colorlinks add color to link text; automatically enabled if any of linkcolor, citecolor, urlcolor,
or toccolor are set
linkcolor, citecolor, urlcolor, toccolor color for internal links, citation links, external links, and
links in table of contents: uses any of the predefined LaTeX colors
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.
biblatexoptions list of options for biblatex.
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)
v 1.17.2
19
Pandoc User’s Guide
Templates
fontsize font size for body text (e.g. 10pt, 12pt)
mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont font families: take the name of any system font (see Con-
TeXt 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 Foot-
ers); 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
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
Using variables in templates
Variable names are sequences of alphanumerics, -, and _, starting with a letter. A variable name surrounded by $ signs will be replaced by its value. For example, the string $title$ in
$title$
will be replaced by the document title.
To write a literal $ in a template, use $$.
Templates may contain conditionals. The syntax is as follows:
$if(variable)$
X
$else$
Y
$endif$
v 1.17.2
20
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
This will include X in the template if variable has a non-null value; otherwise it will include Y. X and Y
are placeholders for any valid template text, and may include interpolated variables or other conditionals. The $else$ section may be omitted.
When variables can have multiple values (for example, author in a multi-author document), you can
use the $for$ keyword:
$for(author)$
$endfor$
You can optionally specify a separator to be used between consecutive items:
$for(author)$$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.
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.
An extensions can be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name and disabled by adding
-EXTENSION. For example, markdown_strict+footnotes is strict Markdown with footnotes enabled,
while markdown-footnotes-pipe_tables is pandoc’s Markdown without footnotes or pipe tables.
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.
v 1.17.2
21
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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.
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.
Headers
There are two kinds of headers: Setext and ATX.
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).
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*
v 1.17.2
22
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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.
Header identifiers
Extension: header_attributes
Headers can be assigned attributes using this syntax at the end of the line containing the header text:
{#identifier .class .class key=value key=value}
Thus, for example, the following headers will all be assigned the identifier foo:
# My header {#foo}
## My header ##
My other header
{#foo}
{#foo}
---------------
(This syntax is compatible with PHP Markdown Extra.)
Note that although this syntax allows assignment of classes and key/value attributes, writers generally
don’t use all of this information. Identifiers, classes, and key/value attributes are used in HTML and
HTML-based formats such as EPUB and slidy. Identifiers are used for labels and link anchors in the
LaTeX, ConTeXt, Textile, and AsciiDoc writers.
Headers with the class unnumbered will not be numbered, even if --number-sections is specified. A
single hyphen (-) in an attribute context is equivalent to .unnumbered, and preferable in non-English
documents. So,
# My header {-}
is just the same as
# My header {.unnumbered}
v 1.17.2
23
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
Extension: auto_identifiers
A header without an explicitly specified identifier will be automatically assigned a unique identifier
based on the header text. To derive the identifier from the header text,
•
•
•
•
•
•
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
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.
These identifiers are used to provide link targets in the table of contents generated by the
--toc|--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 div (or a section, if
--html5 was specified), and the identifier will be attached to the enclosing (or ) tag
rather than the header itself. This allows entire sections to be manipulated using javascript or treated
differently in CSS.
Extension: implicit_header_references
Pandoc behaves as if reference links have been defined for each header. So, to link to a header
v 1.17.2
24
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
# Header identifiers in HTML
you can simply write
[Header identifiers in HTML]
or
[Header identifiers in HTML][]
or
[the section on header identifiers][header identifiers in
HTML]
instead of giving the identifier explicitly:
[Header identifiers in HTML](#header-identifiers-in-html)
If there are multiple headers with identical text, the corresponding reference will link to the first one
only, and you will need to use explicit links to link to the others, as described above.
Like regular reference links, these references are case-insensitive.
Explicit link reference definitions always take priority over implicit header references. So, in the following example, the link will point to bar, not to #foo:
# Foo
[foo]: bar
See [foo]
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.
v 1.17.2
25
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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
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.
Verbatim (code) blocks
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.
v 1.17.2
26
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
Fenced code blocks
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
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Extension: backtick_code_blocks
Same as fenced_code_blocks, but uses backticks (`) instead of tildes (~).
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 and LaTeX. 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, do pandoc --version.) Otherwise, the code block above will
appear as follows:
v 1.17.2
27
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
...
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 codeblock, 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
--highlight-style. For more information on highlighting, see Syntax highlighting, below.
Line blocks
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.
v 1.17.2
28
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
| The Right Honorable Most Venerable and Righteous Samuel L.
Constable, Jr.
| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718
This syntax is borrowed from reStructuredText.
Lists
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.
v 1.17.2
29
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
The four-space rule
A list item may contain multiple paragraphs and other block-level content. However, subsequent paragraphs must be preceded by a blank line and indented four spaces or a tab. The list will look better if
the first paragraph is aligned with the rest:
* First paragraph.
Continued.
* Second paragraph. With a code block, which must be indented
eight spaces:
{ code }
List items may include other lists. In this case the preceding blank line is optional. The nested list must
be indented four spaces or one tab:
* 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.
Note: Although the four-space rule for continuation paragraphs comes from the official Markdown
syntax guide, the reference implementation, Markdown.pl, does not follow it. So pandoc will give different results than Markdown.pl when authors have indented continuation paragraphs fewer than four
spaces.
v 1.17.2
30
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
The Markdown syntax guide is not explicit whether the four-space rule applies to all block-level content
in a list item; it only mentions paragraphs and code blocks. But it implies that the rule applies to all
block-level content (including nested lists), and pandoc interprets it that way.
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
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.2
The fancy_lists extension also allows ‘#’ to be used as an ordered list marker in place of a numeral:
#. one
#. two
2
The point of this rule is to ensure that normal paragraphs starting with people’s initials, like
B. Russell was an English philosopher.
do not get treated as list items.
This rule will not prevent
(C) 2007 Joe Smith
from being interpreted as a list item. In this case, a backslash escape can be used:
(C\) 2007 Joe Smith
v 1.17.2
31
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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
Definition lists
Extension: definition_lists
Pandoc supports definition lists, using the syntax of PHP Markdown Extra with some extensions.3
Term 1
:
Definition 1
Term 2 with *inline markup*
:
Definition 2
{ some code, part of Definition 2 }
Third paragraph of definition 2.
3
I have been influenced by the suggestions of David Wheeler.
v 1.17.2
32
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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 Nonpandoc extensions, below.)
Numbered example lists
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).
v 1.17.2
33
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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.
Compact and loose lists
Pandoc behaves differently from Markdown.pl on some “edge cases” involving lists. Consider this
source:
+
First
+
Second:
+
-
Fee
-
Fie
-
Foe
Third
Pandoc transforms this into a “compact list” (with no tags around “First”, “Second”, or “Third”),
while Markdown puts
tags around “Second” and “Third” (but not “First”), because of the blank
space around “Third”. Pandoc follows a simple rule: if the text is followed by a blank line, it is treated
as a paragraph. Since “Second” is followed by a list, and not a blank line, it isn’t treated as a paragraph.
The fact that the list is followed by a blank line is irrelevant. (Note: Pandoc works this way even when
the markdown_strict format is specified. This behavior is consistent with the official Markdown syntax
description, even though it is different from that of Markdown.pl.)
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:
v 1.17.2
34
Pandoc User’s Guide
-
item one
-
item two
Pandoc’s Markdown
{ 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
Horizontal rules
A line containing a row of three or more *, -, or _ characters (optionally separated by spaces) produces
a horizontal rule:
*
*
*
*
---------------
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.
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.
Extension: simple_tables
Simple tables look like this:
v 1.17.2
35
Pandoc User’s Guide
Right
Left
-------
Center
Default
------ ----------
12
123
1
Table:
Pandoc’s Markdown
12
12
123
123
1
------12
123
1
1
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:4
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the right side but extends beyond it on the left,
the column is right-aligned.
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the left side but extends beyond it on the right,
the column is left-aligned.
• If the dashed line extends beyond the header text on both sides, the column is centered.
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on both sides, the default alignment is used (in
most cases, this will be left).
The table must end with a blank line, or a line of dashes followed by a blank line.
The column headers may be omitted, provided a dashed line is used to end the table. For example:
------12
123
1
-------
------ ---------12
12
123
123
1
------12
123
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.
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
Header
Aligned
Right Left
Aligned Aligned
----------- ------- --------------- ------------------------First
row
12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
4
This scheme is due to Michel Fortin, who proposed it on the Markdown discussion list.
v 1.17.2
36
Pandoc User’s Guide
Second
row
Pandoc’s Markdown
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.
Extension: grid_tables
Grid tables look like this:
: Sample grid table.
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Fruit
| Price
| Advantages
|
+===============+===============+====================+
| Bananas
v 1.17.2
| $1.34
| - built-in wrapper |
37
Pandoc User’s Guide
|
Pandoc’s Markdown
|
| - 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.).
Alignments are not supported, nor are cells that span multiple columns or rows. Grid tables can be
created easily using Emacs table mode.
Extension: pipe_tables
Pipe tables look like this:
| Right | Left | Default | Center |
|------:|:-----|---------|:------:|
|
12
|
12
|
12
|
12
|
|
123
|
123 |
123
|
123
|
|
1
|
1 |
1
|
1
|
: Demonstration of pipe table syntax.
The syntax is identical to PHP Markdown Extra tables. The beginning and ending pipe characters are
optional, but pipes are required between all columns. The colons indicate column alignment as shown.
The header cannot be omitted. To simulate a headerless table, include a header with blank cells.
Since the pipes indicate column boundaries, columns need not be vertically aligned, as they are in the
above example. So, this is a perfectly legal (though ugly) pipe table:
fruit| price
-----|-----:
apple|2.05
pear|1.37
orange|3.09
The cells of pipe tables cannot contain block elements like paragraphs and lists, and cannot span multiple lines. If a pipe table contains a row whose printable content is wider than the column width (see
--columns), then the cell contents will wrap, with the relative cell widths determined by the widths of
the separator lines.
Note: pandoc also recognizes pipe tables of the following form, as can be produced by Emacs’ orgtblmode:
v 1.17.2
38
Pandoc User’s Guide
| One | Two
Pandoc’s Markdown
|
|-----+-------|
| 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.
Metadata blocks
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
v 1.17.2
39
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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 (--title-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.
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 ....)
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
v 1.17.2
40
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
Markdown. Fields with names ending in an underscore will be ignored by pandoc. (They may be given
a role by external processors.)
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:
--title:
'This is the title: it contains a colon'
author:
- name: Author One
affiliation: University of Somewhere
- name: Author Two
affiliation: University of Nowhere
tags: [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 abstract field:
This is the abstract.
It consists of two paragraphs.
Note: The author variable in the default templates expects a simple list or string. To use the structured
authors in the example, you would need a custom template. For example:
$for(author)$
$if(author.name)$
$author.name$$if(author.affiliation)$ ($author.affiliation$)$endif$
$else$
$author$
$endif$
$endfor$
v 1.17.2
41
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
Backslash escapes
Extension: all_symbols_escapable
Except inside a code block or inline code, any punctuation or space character preceded by a backslash
will be treated literally, even if it would normally indicate formatting. Thus, for example, if one writes
*\*hello\**
one will get
*hello*
instead of
hello
This rule is easier to remember than standard Markdown’s rule, which allows only the following characters to be backslash-escaped:
\`*_{}[]()>#+-.!
(However, if the markdown_strict format is used, the standard Markdown rule will be used.)
A backslash-escaped space is parsed as a nonbreaking space. It will appear in TeX output as ~ and in
HTML and XML as \ or \ .
A backslash-escaped newline (i.e. a backslash occurring at the end of a line) is parsed as a hard line break.
It will appear in TeX output as \\ and in HTML as
. This is a nice alternative to Markdown’s
“invisible” way of indicating hard line breaks using two trailing spaces on a line.
Backslash escapes do not work in verbatim contexts.
Smart punctuation
Extension
If the --smart option is specified, pandoc will produce typographically correct output, converting
straight quotes to curly quotes, --- to em-dashes, -- to en-dashes, and ... to ellipses. Nonbreaking
spaces are inserted after certain abbreviations, such as “Mr.”
Note: if your LaTeX template or any included header file call for the csquotes package, pandoc will
detect this automatically and use \enquote{...} for quoted text.
v 1.17.2
42
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
Inline formatting
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\*.
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*.
Strikeout
Extension: strikeout
To strikeout a section of text with a horizontal line, begin and end it with ~~. Thus, for example,
This ~~is deleted text.~~
Superscripts and subscripts
Extension: superscript, subscript
Superscripts may be written by surrounding the superscripted text by ˆ 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 ˆ.)
Thus, if you want the letter P with ‘a cat’ in subscripts, use P~a\ cat~, not P~a cat~.
v 1.17.2
43
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
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: `\*`.
Extension: inline_code_attributes
Attributes can be attached to verbatim text, just as with fenced code blocks:
`<$>`{.haskell}
Small caps
To write small caps, you can use an HTML span tag:
Small caps
(The semicolon is optional and there may be space after the colon.) This will work in all output formats
that support small caps.
Math
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, $20,000 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:
v 1.17.2
44
Pandoc User’s Guide
Pandoc’s Markdown
Markdown, LaTeX, Emacs Org mode, ConTeXt, ZimWiki It will appear verbatim between $
characters.
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.
groff man It will be rendered verbatim without $’s.
MediaWiki, DokuWiki It will be rendered inside