Pandoc User's Guide Manual
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Pandoc User’s Guide
John MacFarlane
April 26, 2018
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.
Pandoc can convert between numerous markup and word
including, but not limited to, various flavors of Markdown,
Word docx. For the full lists of input and output formats,
--to options below. Pandoc can also produce PDF output:
below.
processing formats,
HTML, LaTeX and
see the --from and
see creating a PDF,
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.
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Using pandoc
If no input-files are specified, input is read from stdin. Output goes to stdout by
default. For output to a file, use the -o option:
pandoc -o output.html input.txt
By default, pandoc produces a document fragment. To produce a standalone
document (e.g. a valid HTML file including and ), use the -s or
--standalone flag:
pandoc -s -o output.html input.txt
For more information on how standalone documents are produced, see Templates
below.
If multiple input files are given, pandoc will concatenate them all (with blank lines
between them) before parsing. (Use --file-scope to parse files individually.)
Specifying formats
The format of the input and output can be specified explicitly using commandline options. The input format can be specified using the -f/--from option,
the output format using the -t/--to 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.
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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.
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 html, 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-toPDF-engine, --css affects the output. If wkhtmltopdf is used, then the variables margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, 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, listings (if the --listings option is used), fancyvrb,
longtable, booktabs, graphicx and grffile (if the document contains images),
hyperref, xcolor (with colorlinks), 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
polyglossia (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 added to the template or included in any header file.
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The natbib, biblatex, bibtex, and biber packages can optionally be used for
citation rendering.
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
Options
General options
-f FORMAT, -r FORMAT, --from=FORMAT, --read=FORMAT
Specify input format. FORMAT can be:
::: {#input-formats} - commonmark (CommonMark Markdown) - creole
(Creole 1.0) - docbook (DocBook) - docx (Word docx) - epub (EPUB)
- fb2 (FictionBook2 e-book) - gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), or
markdown_github, which provides deprecated and less accurate support
for Github-Flavored Markdown; please use gfm instead, unless you need
to use extensions other than smart. - 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) - 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 -EXTENSION 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:
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::: {#output-formats} - 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 markdown_github, which provides deprecated and less
accurate support for Github-Flavored Markdown; please use gfm instead,
unless you use extensions that do not work with 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 (groff
man) - markdown (Pandoc’s Markdown) - markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
- markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra) - markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown) - mediawiki (MediaWiki markup) - ms (groff
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 -EXTENSION 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:
$HOME/.pandoc
in Windows XP:
C:\Documents And Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\pandoc
and in Windows Vista or later:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\pandoc
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You can find the default user data directory on your system by looking at
the output of pandoc --version. A reference.odt, reference.docx,
epub.css, templates, slidy, slideous, or s5 directory placed in this
directory will override pandoc’s normal defaults.
--bash-completion Generate a bash completion script. To enable bash completion with pandoc, add this to your .bashrc:
eval "$(pandoc --bash-completion)"
--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.
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 haskell. Multiple classes may
be separated by spaces or commas.
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--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=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.
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The following is an example lua script for macro-expansion:
function expand_hello_world(inline)
if inline.c == '{{helloworld}}' then
return pandoc.Emph{ pandoc.Str "Hello, World" }
else
return inline
end
end
return {{Str = expand_hello_world}}
In order of preference, pandoc will look for lua filters in
1. a specified full or relative path (executable or non-executable)
2. $DATADIR/filters (executable or non-executable) where $DATADIR
is the user data directory (see --data-dir, above).
-M KEY [=VAL], --metadata=KEY [:VAL] Set the metadata field KEY
to the value VAL. A value specified on the command line overrides a value specified in the document using [YAML metadata
blocks][Extension:yaml_metadata_block]. 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.
-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/paragraph-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
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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.
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.
--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 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
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.
--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.
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--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, docx, odt, opendocument, rst,
or ms, an instruction to create one) in the output document. This option
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 tango. 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.
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--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 tag in HTML,
or the \begin{document} command in LaTeX). This can be used to include
navigation bars or banners in HTML documents. This option can be used
repeatedly to include multiple files. They will be included in the order
specified. Implies --standalone.
-A FILE, --include-after-body=FILE Include contents of FILE, verbatim,
at the end of the document body (before the tag in HTML, or the
\end{document} command in LaTeX). This option can be used repeatedly
to include multiple files. They will be included in the order specified.
Implies --standalone.
--resource-path=SEARCHPATH List of paths to search for images and
other resources. The paths should be separated by : on Linux, UNIX,
and macOS systems, and by ; on Windows. If --resource-path is not
specified, the default resource path is the working directory. Note that,
if --resource-path 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.
--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).
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 --standalone. 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, slidy, slideous, dzslides, and revealjs. Scripts, images, and stylesheets at absolute URLs will be downloaded; those at relative
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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, --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 for XML
and HTML formats (which use numerical entities instead of UTF-8 when
this option is selected) and for groff ms and man (which use hexadecimal
escapes).
--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 document. Currently only affects the markdown writer.
--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.
(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 --number-sections is
specified.
--number-offset=NUMBER[,NUMBER,. . . ] Offset for section headings
in HTML output (ignored in other output formats). The first number is
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added to the section number for top-level headers, the second for secondlevel 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
-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. Note that content
that is not contained under slide-level headers will not appear in the slide
show. The default is to set the slide level based on the contents of the
document; see Structuring the slide show.
--section-divs Wrap sections in tags (or tags for html4),
and attach identifiers to the enclosing (or ) rather than
the header itself. See Header identifiers, below.
--email-obfuscation=none|javascript|references Specify a method for obfuscating mailto: links in HTML documents. none leaves 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 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 --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.
A stylesheet is required for generating EPUB. If none is provided using
this option (or the stylesheet metadata field), 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.
13
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 --data-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-reference.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.odt:
pandoc --print-default-data-file
reference.odt > custom-reference.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 .pptx or .potx extension) should work, as
will most templates derived from these.
The specific requirement is that the template should contain the
following four layouts as its first four layouts:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Title Slide
Title and Content
Section Header
Two Content
All templates included with a recent version of MS PowerPoint will
fit these criteria. (You can click on Layout under the Home menu to
check.)
14
You can also modify the default reference.pptx:
first
run
pandoc --print-default-data-file reference.pptx >
custom-reference.pptx, and then modify custom-reference.pptx
in MS PowerPoint (pandoc will use the first four layout slides, as
mentioned above).
--epub-cover-image=FILE Use the specified image as the EPUB cover. It is
recommended that the image be less than 1000px in width and height. Note
that in a Markdown source document you can also specify cover-image
in a YAML metadata block (see EPUB Metadata, below).
--epub-metadata=FILE Look in the specified XML file for metadata for the
EPUB. The file should contain a series of Dublin Core elements. For
example:
Creative Commons
es-AR
By default, pandoc will include the following metadata elements:
(from the document title), (from the document
authors), (from the document date, which should be in ISO
8601 format), (from the lang variable, or, if is not set,
the locale), and (a randomly generated
UUID). Any of these may be overridden by elements in the metadata file.
Note: if the source document is Markdown, a YAML metadata block in
the document can be used instead. See below under EPUB Metadata.
--epub-embed-font=FILE Embed the specified font in the EPUB. This option
can be repeated to embed multiple fonts. Wildcards can also be used:
for example, DejaVuSans-*.ttf. However, if you use wildcards on the
command line, be sure to escape them or put the whole filename in single
quotes, to prevent them from being interpreted by the shell. To use the
embedded fonts, you will need to add declarations like the following to
your CSS (see --css):
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Regular.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf");
}
@font-face {
15
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;
src:url("DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf");
}
body { font-family: "DejaVuSans"; }
--epub-chapter-level=NUMBER Specify the header level at which to split
the EPUB into separate “chapter” files. The default is to split into chapters
at level 1 headers. This option only affects the internal composition of the
EPUB, not the way chapters and sections are displayed to users. Some
readers may be slow if the chapter files are too large, so for large documents
with few level 1 headers, one might want to use a chapter level of 2 or 3.
--epub-subdirectory=DIRNAME Specify the subdirectory in the OCF container that is to hold the EPUB-specific contents. The default is EPUB. To
put the EPUB contents in the top level, use an empty string.
--pdf-engine=pdflatex|lualatex|xelatex|wkhtmltopdf|weasyprint|prince|context|pdfroff
Use the specified engine when producing PDF output. The default is
pdflatex. If the engine is not in your PATH, the full path of the engine
may be specified here.
--pdf-engine-opt=STRING Use the given string as a command-line argument to the pdf-engine. If used multiple times, the arguments are provided with spaces between them. Note that no check for duplicate options
is done.
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
--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.
16
--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-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
The default is to render TeX math as far as possible using Unicode characters.
Formulas are put inside a span with class="math", so that they may be styled
differently from the surrounding text if needed. However, this gives acceptable
results only for basic math, usually you will want to use --mathjax or another
of the following options.
--mathjax[=URL] Use MathJax to display embedded TeX math in HTML
output. TeX math will be put between \(...\) (for inline math) or
\[...\] (for display math) and wrapped in tags with class math.
Then the MathJax JavaScript will render it. The URL should point to the
MathJax.js load script. If a URL is not provided, a link to the Cloudflare
CDN will be inserted.
--mathml Convert TeX math to MathML (in epub3, docbook4, docbook5, jats,
html4 and html5). This is the default in odt output. Note that currently only Firefox and Safari (and select e-book readers) natively support
MathML.
--webtex[=URL] Convert TeX formulas to ![]()
tags that link to an external
script that converts formulas to images. The formula will be URL-encoded
and concatenated with the URL provided. For SVG images you can
for example use --webtex https://latex.codecogs.com/svg.latex?.
If no URL is specified, the CodeCogs URL generating PNGs will be
used (https://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. If a URL is not provided,
a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted.
17
--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.
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.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).
18
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][Extension:yaml_metadata_block] or with the --metadata option.
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).1
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}}
}
19
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)
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.
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. In LaTeX output,
babel-otherlangs and polyglossia-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-toright).
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.
20
When using LaTeX for bidirectional documents, only the xelatex engine
is fully supported (use --pdf-engine=xelatex).
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/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
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).
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
21
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)
microtypeoptions options to pass to the microtype package
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 options allowed
by xcolor, including the dvipsnames, svgnames, 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.
22
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
none, small (using
whitespace spacing between paragraphs, e.g.
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.
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
23
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)
Using variables in templates
Variable names are sequences of alphanumerics, -, and _, starting with a letter.
A variable name surrounded by $ signs will be replaced by its value. For example,
the string $title$ in
$title$
will be replaced by the document title.
To write a literal $ in a template, use $$.
Templates may contain conditionals. The syntax is as follows:
$if(variable)$
X
$else$
Y
$endif$
This will include X in the template if variable has a non-null value; otherwise
it will include Y. X and Y are placeholders for any valid template text, and may
include interpolated variables or other conditionals. The $else$ section may be
omitted.
When variables can have multiple values (for example, author in a multi-author
document), you can use the $for$ keyword:
$for(author)$
$endfor$
You can optionally specify a separator to be used between consecutive items:
$for(author)$$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
24
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.
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.
Typography
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.
25
Headers and sections
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 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
*Dogs*?--in *my* house?
[HTML], [S5], or [RTF]?
3. Applications
33
header-identifiers-in-html
dogs--in-my-house
html-s5-or-rtf
applications
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.
26
If the --section-divs option is specified, then each section will be wrapped in
a section (or a div, if html4 was specified), and the identifier will be attached
to the enclosing (or ) tag rather than the header itself. This
allows entire sections to be manipulated using JavaScript or treated differently
in CSS.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
output formats textile
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_divs+raw_html.)
27
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
Extension: native_spans
Analogous to native_divs above.
Literate Haskell support
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 literatehaskell and bird tracks.
Examples:
pandoc -f markdown+lhs -t html
28
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.
Other extensions
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
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
Extension: amuse
In the muse input format, this enables Text::Amuse extensions to Emacs Muse
markup.
Extension: citations
Some aspects of Pandoc’s Markdown citation syntax are also accepted in org
input.
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.
29
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.
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.
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.
30
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*
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.
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.
31
Header identifiers
See also the auto_identifiers extension above.
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}
Extension: implicit_header_references
Pandoc behaves as if reference links have been defined for each header. So, to
link to a header
# Header identifiers in HTML
you can simply write
[Header identifiers in HTML]
or
32
[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.
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:
33
> 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.
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
34
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, 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:
...
35
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 --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.
| The Right Honorable Most Venerable and Righteous Samuel L.
Constable, Jr.
36
| 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.
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.
37
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.
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
38
and a space. The numbers themselves are ignored, so there is no difference
between this list:
1.
2.
3.
one
two
three
and this one:
5.
7.
1.
one
two
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
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)
10)
11)
Ninth
Tenth
Eleventh
i. subone
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
39
ii. subtwo
iii. subthree
Pandoc will start a new list each time a different type of list marker is used. So,
the following will create three lists:
(2)
(5)
1.
*
Two
Three
Four
Five
If default list markers are desired, use #.:
#.
#.
#.
one
two
three
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.
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:
3I
have been influenced by the suggestions of David Wheeler.
40
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.)
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).
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
41
behave as if the four_space_rule 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.
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:
-
item one
item two
42
{ my code block }
You can use the same trick if you want two consecutive lists instead of one big
list:
1.
2.
3.
one
two
three
1.
2.
3.
uno
dos
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:
Right
------12
123
1
Left
Center
------ ---------12
12
123
123
1
1
Default
------12
123
1
43
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: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
1
------ ----------
------12
123
1
-------
When headers are omitted, column alignments are determined on the basis of
the first line of the table body. So, in the tables above, the columns would be
right, left, center, and right aligned, respectively.
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
4 This
row
5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
scheme is due to Michel Fortin, who proposed it on the Markdown discussion list.
44
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
| $1.34
| - built-in wrapper |
|
|
| - bright color
|
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Oranges
| $2.10
| - cures scurvy
|
|
|
| - tasty
|
45
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
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
|
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
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.
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.
46
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. (In this case, the table will take up the full text width.) 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.
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
47
% 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
(--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.
48
% 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 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 or block-level
formatting:
--title: 'This is the title: it contains a colon'
author:
- Author One
- Author Two
tags: [nothing, nothingness]
abstract: |
This is the abstract.
It consists of two paragraphs.
49
...
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.
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}}
```
50
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.
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\*.
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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~.
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).
52
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, use the smallcaps class:
[Small caps]{.smallcaps}
Or, without the bracketed_spans extension:
Small caps
For compatibility with other Markdown flavors, CSS is also supported:
Small caps
This will work in all output formats that support small caps.
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:
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