Pandoc User’s Guide() Pandoc User’s Guide()
NAME
pandoc - general markup converter
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 processing formats,
including, but not limited to, various flavors of Markdown, HTML, LaTeX
and Word docx. For the full lists of input and output formats, see the
--from and --to options below. Pandoc can also produce PDF output: see
creating a PDF, below.
Pandoc’s enhanced version of Markdown includes syntax for tables, defi-
nition 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 ex-
pressive than many of the formats it converts between, one should not
expect perfect conversions between every format and every other. Pan-
doc 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 mod-
el. While conversions from pandoc’s Markdown to all formats aspire to
be perfect, conversions from formats more expressive than pandoc’s
Markdown can be expected to be lossy.
Using pandoc
If no input-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 stand-
alone document (e.g. a valid HTML file including <head> and <body>),
use the -s or --standalone flag:
pandoc -s -o output.html input.txt
For more information on how standalone documents are produced, see Tem-
plates 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
command-line 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 pan-
doc --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 ex-
tension is unknown, the output format will default to HTML. If no in-
put 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.
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). Alterna-
tively, pandoc can use ConTeXt, roff ms, or HTML as an intermediate
format. 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. The tool used to generate the PDF from the in-
termediate format may be specified using --pdf-engine.
You can control the PDF style using variables, depending on the inter-
mediate format used: see variables for LaTeX, variables for ConTeXt,
variables for wkhtmltopdf, variables for ms. When HTML is used as an
intermediate format, the output can be styled using --css.
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, iftex, listings (if the --listings option is used), fan-
cyvrb, longtable, booktabs, graphicx (if the document contains images),
hyperref, xcolor, ulem, geometry (with the geometry variable set),
setspace (with linestretch), and babel (with lang). If CJKmainfont is
set, xeCJK is needed. The use of xelatex or lualatex as the PDF engine
requires fontspec. lualatex uses selnolig. xelatex uses bidi (with
the dir variable set). If the mathspec variable is set, xelatex will
use mathspec instead of unicode-math. The upquote and microtype pack-
ages are used if available, and csquotes will be used for typography if
the csquotes variable or metadata field is set to a true value. The
natbib, biblatex, bibtex, and biber packages can optionally be used for
citation rendering. The following packages will be used to improve
output quality if present, but pandoc does not require them to be
present: upquote (for straight quotes in verbatim environments), mi-
crotype (for better spacing adjustments), parskip (for better inter-
paragraph spaces), xurl (for better line breaks in URLs), bookmark (for
better PDF bookmarks), and footnotehyper or footnote (to allow foot-
notes in tables).
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 https://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" \
https://www.fsf.org
OPTIONS
General options
-f FORMAT, -r FORMAT, --from=FORMAT, --read=FORMAT
Specify input format. FORMAT can be:
• bibtex (BibTeX bibliography)
• biblatex (BibLaTeX bibliography)
• commonmark (CommonMark Markdown)
• commonmark_x (CommonMark Markdown with extensions)
• creole (Creole 1.0)
• csljson (CSL JSON bibliography)
• csv (CSV table)
• docbook (DocBook)
• docx (Word docx)
• dokuwiki (DokuWiki markup)
• epub (EPUB)
• fb2 (FictionBook2 e-book)
• gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), or the deprecated and less ac-
curate markdown_github; use markdown_github only if you need
extensions not supported in gfm.
• haddock (Haddock markup)
• html (HTML)
• ipynb (Jupyter notebook)
• jats (JATS XML)
• jira (Jira/Confluence wiki markup)
• json (JSON version of native AST)
• latex (LaTeX)
• markdown (Pandoc’s Markdown)
• markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
• markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)
• markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown)
• mediawiki (MediaWiki markup)
• man (roff man)
• muse (Muse)
• native (native Haskell)
• odt (ODT)
• opml (OPML)
• org (Emacs Org mode)
• rtf (Rich Text Format)
• rst (reStructuredText)
• t2t (txt2tags)
• textile (Textile)
• tikiwiki (TikiWiki markup)
• twiki (TWiki markup)
• vimwiki (Vimwiki)
• the path of a custom Lua reader, see Custom readers and writ-
ers below
Extensions can be individually enabled or disabled by appending
+EXTENSION or -EXTENSION to the format name. See Extensions be-
low, for a list of extensions and their names. See --list-in-
put-formats and --list-extensions, below.
-t FORMAT, -w FORMAT, --to=FORMAT, --write=FORMAT
Specify output format. FORMAT can be:
• asciidoc (AsciiDoc) or asciidoctor (AsciiDoctor)
• beamer (LaTeX beamer slide show)
• bibtex (BibTeX bibliography)
• biblatex (BibLaTeX bibliography)
• commonmark (CommonMark Markdown)
• commonmark_x (CommonMark Markdown with extensions)
• context (ConTeXt)
• csljson (CSL JSON bibliography)
• docbook or docbook4 (DocBook 4)
• docbook5 (DocBook 5)
• docx (Word docx)
• dokuwiki (DokuWiki markup)
• epub or epub3 (EPUB v3 book)
• epub2 (EPUB v2)
• fb2 (FictionBook2 e-book)
• gfm (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), or the deprecated and less ac-
curate markdown_github; use markdown_github only if you need
extensions not supported in gfm.
• haddock (Haddock markup)
• html or html5 (HTML, i.e. HTML5/XHTML polyglot markup)
• html4 (XHTML 1.0 Transitional)
• icml (InDesign ICML)
• ipynb (Jupyter notebook)
• jats_archiving (JATS XML, Archiving and Interchange Tag Set)
• jats_articleauthoring (JATS XML, Article Authoring Tag Set)
• jats_publishing (JATS XML, Journal Publishing Tag Set)
• jats (alias for jats_archiving)
• jira (Jira/Confluence wiki markup)
• json (JSON version of native AST)
• latex (LaTeX)
• man (roff man)
• markdown (Pandoc’s Markdown)
• markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
• markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)
• markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown)
• markua (Markua)
• mediawiki (MediaWiki markup)
• ms (roff ms)
• muse (Muse),
• native (native Haskell),
• odt (OpenOffice text document)
• opml (OPML)
• opendocument (OpenDocument)
• org (Emacs Org mode)
• pdf (PDF)
• 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)
• xwiki (XWiki markup)
• zimwiki (ZimWiki markup)
• the path of a custom Lua writer, see Custom readers and writ-
ers below
Note that odt, docx, epub, and pdf 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 be-
low, for a list of extensions and their names. See --list-out-
put-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. On *nix and macOS systems this will be the pandoc
subdirectory of the XDG data directory (by default, $HOME/.lo-
cal/share, overridable by setting the XDG_DATA_HOME environment
variable). If that directory does not exist and $HOME/.pandoc
exists, it will be used (for backwards compatibility). On Win-
dows the default user data directory is C:\Users\USERNAME\AppDa-
ta\Roaming\pandoc. You can find the default user data directory
on your system by looking at the output of pandoc --version.
Data files placed in this directory (for example, reference.odt,
reference.docx, epub.css, templates) will override pandoc’s nor-
mal defaults.
-d FILE, --defaults=FILE
Specify a set of default option settings. FILE is a YAML file
whose fields correspond to command-line option settings. All
options for document conversion, including input and output
files, can be set using a defaults file. The file will be
searched for first in the working directory, and then in the de-
faults subdirectory of the user data directory (see --data-dir).
The .yaml extension may be omitted. See the section Defaults
files for more information on the file format. Settings from
the defaults file may be overridden or extended by subsequent
options on the command line.
--bash-completion
Generate a bash completion script. To enable bash completion
with pandoc, add this to your .bashrc:
eval "$(pandoc --bash-completion)"
--verbose
Give verbose debugging output.
--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 ver-
bosity 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 for FORMAT, 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
--shift-heading-level-by=NUMBER
Shift heading levels by a positive or negative integer. For ex-
ample, with --shift-heading-level-by=-1, level 2 headings become
level 1 headings, and level 3 headings become level 2 headings.
Headings cannot have a level less than 1, so a heading that
would be shifted below level 1 becomes a regular paragraph. Ex-
ception: with a shift of -N, a level-N heading at the beginning
of the document replaces the metadata title. --shift-heading-
level-by=-1 is a good choice when converting HTML or Markdown
documents that use an initial level-1 heading for the document
title and level-2+ headings for sections. --shift-heading-lev-
el-by=1 may be a good choice for converting Markdown documents
that use level-1 headings for sections to HTML, since pandoc us-
es a level-1 heading to render the document title.
--base-header-level=NUMBER
Deprecated. Use --shift-heading-level-by=X instead, where X =
NUMBER - 1. Specify the base level for headings (defaults to 1).
--strip-empty-paragraphs
Deprecated. Use the +empty_paragraphs extension instead. Ignore
paragraphs with no content. This option is useful for convert-
ing word processing documents where users have used empty para-
graphs 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.
--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 doc-
uments. This will allow footnotes in different files with the
same identifiers to work as expected. If this option is set,
footnotes and links will not work across files. Reading binary
files (docx, odt, epub) implies --file-scope.
-F PROGRAM, --filter=PROGRAM
Specify an executable to be used as a filter transforming the
pandoc AST after the input is parsed and before the output is
written. The executable should read JSON from stdin and write
JSON to stdout. The JSON must be formatted like pandoc’s own
JSON input and output. The name of the output format will be
passed to the filter as the first argument. Hence,
pandoc --filter ./caps.py -t latex
is equivalent to
pandoc -t json | ./caps.py latex | pandoc -f json -t latex
The latter form may be useful for debugging filters.
Filters may be written in any language. Text.Pandoc.JSON ex-
ports 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-exe-
cutable)
2. $DATADIR/filters (executable or non-executable) where
$DATADIR is the user data directory (see --data-dir, above).
3. $PATH (executable only)
Filters, Lua-filters, and citeproc processing are applied in the
order specified on the command line.
-L SCRIPT, --lua-filter=SCRIPT
Transform the document in a similar fashion as JSON filters (see
--filter), but use pandoc’s built-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 cre-
ation. It is always loaded into the script’s Lua environment.
See the Lua filters documentation for further details.
In order of preference, pandoc will look for Lua filters in
1. a specified full or relative path
2. $DATADIR/filters where $DATADIR is the user data directory
(see --data-dir, above).
Filters, Lua filters, and citeproc processing are applied in the
order specified on the command line.
-M KEY[=VAL], --metadata=KEY[:VAL]
Set the metadata field KEY to the value VAL. A value specified
on the command line overrides a value specified in the document
using YAML metadata blocks. Values will be parsed as YAML bool-
ean 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 acces-
sible from filters and may be printed in some output formats)
and metadata values will be escaped when inserted into the tem-
plate.
--metadata-file=FILE
Read metadata from the supplied YAML (or JSON) file. This op-
tion can be used with every input format, but string scalars in
the YAML file will always be parsed as Markdown. Generally, the
input will be handled the same as in YAML metadata blocks. This
option can be used repeatedly to include multiple metadata
files; values in files specified later on the command line will
be preferred over those specified in earlier files. Metadata
values specified inside the document, or by using -M, overwrite
values specified with this option. The file will be searched
for first in the working directory, and then in the metadata
subdirectory of the user data directory (see --data-dir).
-p, --preserve-tabs
Preserve tabs instead of converting them to spaces. (By de-
fault, pandoc converts tabs to spaces before parsing its input.)
Note that this will only affect tabs in literal code spans and
code blocks. Tabs in regular text are always 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) processes all the insertions and deletions. reject ig-
nores them. Both accept and reject ignore comments. all in-
cludes all insertions, deletions, and comments, wrapped in spans
with insertion, deletion, comment-start, and comment-end class-
es, respectively. The author and time of change is included.
all is useful for scripting: only accepting changes from a cer-
tain 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 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. Media are downloaded, read from the file
system, or extracted from a binary container (e.g. docx), as
needed. The original file paths are used if they are relative
paths not containing ... Otherwise filenames are constructed
from the SHA1 hash 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 found in
this list will be followed by a nonbreaking space, and the peri-
od will not produce sentence-ending space in formats like LaTeX.
The strings may not contain spaces.
--trace
Print diagnostic output tracing parser progress to stderr. This
option is intended for use by developers in diagnosing perfor-
mance issues.
General writer options
-s, --standalone
Produce output with an appropriate header and footer (e.g. a
standalone HTML, LaTeX, TEI, or RTF file, not a fragment). This
option is set automatically for pdf, epub, epub3, fb2, docx, and
odt output. For native output, this option causes metadata to
be included; otherwise, metadata is suppressed.
--template=FILE|URL
Use the specified file as a custom template for the generated
document. Implies --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 tem-
plates 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-tem-
plate).
-V KEY[=VAL], --variable=KEY[:VAL]
Set the template variable KEY to the value VAL when rendering
the document in standalone mode. If no VAL is specified, the
key will be given the value true.
--sandbox
Run pandoc in a sandbox, limiting IO operations in readers and
writers to reading the files specified on the command line.
Note that this option does not limit IO operations by filters or
in the production of PDF documents. But it does offer security
against, for example, disclosure of files through the use of in-
clude directives. Anyone using pandoc on untrusted user input
should use this option.
-D FORMAT, --print-default-template=FORMAT
Print the system default template for an output FORMAT. (See -t
for a list of possible FORMATs.) Templates in the user data di-
rectory are ignored. This option may be used with -o/--output
to redirect output to a file, but -o/--output must come before
--print-default-template on the command line.
Note that some of the default templates use partials, for exam-
ple styles.html. To print the partials, use --print-default-da-
ta-file: for example, --print-default-data-file=tem-
plates/styles.html.
--print-default-data-file=FILE
Print a system default data file. Files in the user data direc-
tory are ignored. This option may be used with -o/--output to
redirect output to a file, but -o/--output must come before
--print-default-data-file on the command line.
--eol=crlf|lf|native
Manually specify line endings: crlf (Windows), lf (macOS/Lin-
ux/UNIX), or native (line endings appropriate to the OS on which
pandoc is being run). The default is native.
--dpi=NUMBER
Specify the default dpi (dots per inch) value for conversion
from pixels to inch/centimeters and vice versa. (Technically,
the correct term would be ppi: pixels per inch.) The default is
96dpi. When images contain information about dpi internally,
the encoded value is used instead of the default specified by
this option.
--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 new-
lines in the source, there will be nonsemantic newlines in the
output as well). In ipynb output, this option affects wrapping
of the contents of markdown cells.
--columns=NUMBER
Specify length of lines in characters. This affects text wrap-
ping 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 unless -s/--standalone is used, and it has no ef-
fect on man, docbook4, docbook5, or jats output.
Note that if you are producing a PDF via ms, the table of con-
tents will appear at the beginning of the document, before the
title. If you would prefer it to be at the end of the document,
use the option --pdf-engine-opt=--no-toc-relocation.
--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
headings 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 in-
formation on syntax highlighting in pandoc, see Syntax high-
lighting, 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 mod-
ified, saved with a .theme extension, and used with --highlight-
style. This option may be used with -o/--output to redirect
output to a file, but -o/--output must come before --print-high-
light-style on the command line.
--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.
This option may be repeated to add multiple syntax definitions.
-H FILE, --include-in-header=FILE|URL
Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the end of the header.
This can be used, for example, to include special CSS or Java-
Script 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|URL
Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the beginning of the doc-
ument body (e.g. after the <body> tag in HTML, or the \be-
gin{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 in-
cluded in the order specified. Implies --standalone.
-A FILE, --include-after-body=FILE|URL
Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the end of the document
body (before the </body> tag in HTML, or the \end{document} com-
mand 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 sys-
tems, 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. This option can be used re-
peatedly. Search path components that come later on the command
line will be searched before those that come earlier, so --re-
source-path foo:bar --resource-path baz:bim is equivalent to
--resource-path baz:bim:foo:bar.
--request-header=NAME:VAL
Set the request header NAME to the value VAL when making HTTP
requests (for example, when a URL is given on the command line,
or when resources used in a document must be downloaded). If
you’re behind a proxy, you also need to set the environment
variable http_proxy to http://....
--no-check-certificate
Disable the certificate verification to allow access to unsecure
HTTP resources (for example when the certificate is no longer
valid or self signed).
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 re-
sulting file should be “self-contained,” in the sense that it
needs no external files and no net access to be displayed prop-
erly by a browser. This option works only with HTML output for-
mats, 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 rela-
tive 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 incor-
porated; 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 <q> tags for quotes in HTML. (This option only has an ef-
fect if the smart extension is enabled for the input format
used.)
--ascii
Use only ASCII characters in output. Currently supported for
XML and HTML formats (which use entities instead of UTF-8 when
this option is selected), CommonMark, gfm, and Markdown (which
use entities), roff ms (which use hexadecimal escapes), and to a
limited degree LaTeX (which uses standard commands for accented
characters when possible). roff man output uses ASCII by de-
fault.
--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 this option only affects the markdown, muse, html,
epub, slidy, s5, slideous, dzslides, and revealjs writers.
--markdown-headings=setext|atx
Specify whether to use ATX-style (#-prefixed) or Setext-style
(underlined) headings for level 1 and 2 headings in Markdown
output. (The default is atx.) ATX-style headings are always
used for levels 3+. This option also affects Markdown cells in
ipynb output.
--atx-headers
Deprecated synonym for --markdown-headings=atx.
--top-level-division=default|section|chapter|part
Treat top-level headings as the given division type in LaTeX,
ConTeXt, DocBook, and TEI output. The hierarchy order is part,
chapter, then section; all headings are shifted such that the
top-level heading becomes the specified type. The default be-
havior is to determine the best division type via heuristics:
unless other conditions apply, section is chosen. When the doc-
umentclass variable is set to report, book, or memoir (unless
the article option is specified), chapter is implied as the set-
ting for this option. If beamer is the output format, specify-
ing either chapter or part will cause top-level headings to be-
come \part{..}, while second-level headings remain as their de-
fault type.
-N, --number-sections
Number section headings in LaTeX, ConTeXt, HTML, Docx, ms, 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 added to the section num-
ber for top-level headings, the second for second-level head-
ings, and so on. So, for example, if you want the first top-
level heading in your document to be numbered “6”, specify
--number-offset=5. If your document starts with a level-2 head-
ing which you want to be numbered “1.5”, specify --number-off-
set=1,4. Offsets are 0 by default. Implies --number-sections.
--listings
Use the listings package for LaTeX code blocks. The package
does not support multi-byte encoding for source code. To handle
UTF-8 you would need to use a custom template. This issue is
fully documented here: Encoding issue with the listings package.
-i, --incremental
Make list items in slide shows display incrementally (one by
one). The default is for lists to be displayed all at once.
--slide-level=NUMBER
Specifies that headings with the specified level create slides
(for beamer, s5, slidy, slideous, dzslides). Headings above
this level in the hierarchy are used to divide the slide show
into sections; headings below this level create subheads within
a slide. Valid values are 0-6. If a slide level of 0 is speci-
fied, slides will not be split automatically on headings, and
horizontal rules must be used to indicate slide boundaries. If
a slide level is not specified explicitly, the slide level will
be set automatically based on the contents of the document; see
Structuring the slide show.
--section-divs
Wrap sections in <section> tags (or <div> tags for html4), and
attach identifiers to the enclosing <section> (or <div>) rather
than the heading itself. See Heading identifiers, below.
--email-obfuscation=none|javascript|references
Specify a method for obfuscating mailto: links in HTML docu-
ments. none leaves mailto: links as they are. javascript ob-
fuscates them using JavaScript. references obfuscates them by
printing their letters as decimal or hexadecimal character ref-
erences. 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 du-
plicate 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 pro-
vided using this option (or the css or stylesheet metadata
fields), pandoc will look for a file epub.css in the user data
directory (see --data-dir). If it is not found there, sensible
defaults will be used.
--reference-doc=FILE
Use the specified file as a style reference in producing a docx
or ODT file.
Docx For best results, the reference docx should be a modified
version of a docx file produced using pandoc. The con-
tents 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 -o custom-refer-
ence.docx --print-default-data-file 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 styles:
• 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 styles:
• Default Paragraph Font
• Body Text Char
• Verbatim Char
• Footnote Reference
• Hyperlink
• Section Number
Table style:
• 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 refer-
ence.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 -o custom-reference.odt
--print-default-data-file reference.odt. Then open cus-
tom-reference.odt in LibreOffice, modify the styles as
you wish, and save the file.
PowerPoint
Templates included with Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 (either
with .pptx or .potx extension) are known to work, as are
most templates derived from these.
The specific requirement is that the template should con-
tain layouts with the following names (as seen within
PowerPoint):
• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Comparison
• Content with Caption
• Blank
For each name, the first layout found with that name will
be used. If no layout is found with one of the names,
pandoc will output a warning and use the layout with that
name from the default reference doc instead. (How these
layouts are used is described in PowerPoint layout
choice.)
All templates included with a recent version of MS Power-
Point will fit these criteria. (You can click on Layout
under the Home menu to check.)
You can also modify the default reference.pptx: first run
pandoc -o custom-reference.pptx --print-default-data-file
reference.pptx, and then modify custom-reference.pptx in
MS PowerPoint (pandoc will use the layouts with the names
listed 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 exam-
ple:
<dc:rights>Creative Commons</dc:rights>
<dc:language>es-AR</dc:language>
By default, pandoc will include the following metadata elements:
<dc:title> (from the document title), <dc:creator> (from the
document authors), <dc:date> (from the document date, which
should be in ISO 8601 format), <dc:language> (from the lang
variable, or, if is not set, the locale), and <dc:identifier
id="BookId"> (a randomly generated UUID). Any of these may be
overridden by elements in the metadata file.
Note: if the source document is Markdown, a YAML metadata block
in the document can be used instead. See below under EPUB Meta-
data.
--epub-embed-font=FILE
Embed the specified font in the EPUB. This option can be re-
peated 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 declara-
tions like the following to your CSS (see --css):
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Regular.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf");
}
@font-face {
font-family: DejaVuSans;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;
src:url("DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf");
}
body { font-family: "DejaVuSans"; }
--epub-chapter-level=NUMBER
Specify the heading level at which to split the EPUB into sepa-
rate “chapter” files. The default is to split into chapters at
level-1 headings. This option only affects the internal compo-
sition of the EPUB, not the way chapters and sections are dis-
played to users. Some readers may be slow if the chapter files
are too large, so for large documents with few level-1 headings,
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.
--ipynb-output=all|none|best
Determines how ipynb output cells are treated. all means that
all of the data formats included in the original are preserved.
none means that the contents of data cells are omitted. best
causes pandoc to try to pick the richest data block in each out-
put cell that is compatible with the output format. The default
is best.
--pdf-engine=PROGRAM
Use the specified engine when producing PDF output. Valid val-
ues are pdflatex, lualatex, xelatex, latexmk, tectonic, wkhtml-
topdf, weasyprint, pagedjs-cli, prince, context, and pdfroff.
If the engine is not in your PATH, the full path of the engine
may be specified here. If this option is not specified, pandoc
uses the following defaults depending on the output format spec-
ified using -t/--to:
• -t latex or none: pdflatex (other options: xelatex, lualatex,
tectonic, latexmk)
• -t context: context
• -t html: wkhtmltopdf (other options: prince, weasyprint,
pagedjs-cli; see print-css.rocks for a good introduction to
PDF generation from HTML/CSS.)
• -t ms: pdfroff
--pdf-engine-opt=STRING
Use the given string as a command-line argument to the pdf-en-
gine. For example, to use a persistent directory foo for la-
texmk’s auxiliary files, use --pdf-engine-opt=-outdir=foo. Note
that no check for duplicate options is done.
Citation rendering
-C, --citeproc
Process the citations in the file, replacing them with rendered
citations and adding a bibliography. Citation processing will
not take place unless bibliographic data is supplied, either
through an external file specified using the --bibliography op-
tion or the bibliography field in metadata, or via a references
section in metadata containing a list of citations in CSL YAML
format with Markdown formatting. The style is controlled by a
CSL stylesheet specified using the --csl option or the csl field
in metadata. (If no stylesheet is specified, the chicago-au-
thor-date style will be used by default.) The citation process-
ing transformation may be applied before or after filters or Lua
filters (see --filter, --lua-filter): these transformations are
applied in the order they appear on the command line. For more
information, see the section on Citations.
--bibliography=FILE
Set the bibliography field in the document’s metadata to FILE,
overriding any value set in the metadata. If you supply this
argument multiple times, each FILE will be added to bibliogra-
phy. If FILE is a URL, it will be fetched via HTTP. If FILE is
not found relative to the working directory, it will be sought
in the resource path (see --resource-path).
--csl=FILE
Set the csl field in the document’s metadata to FILE, overriding
any value set in the metadata. (This is equivalent to --metada-
ta csl=FILE.) If FILE is a URL, it will be fetched via HTTP.
If FILE is not found relative to the working directory, it will
be sought in the resource path (see --resource-path) and finally
in the csl subdirectory of the pandoc user data directory.
--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.) If FILE
is a URL, it will be fetched via HTTP. If FILE is not found
relative to the working directory, it will be sought in the re-
source path (see --resource-path) and finally in the csl subdi-
rectory of the pandoc user data directory.
--natbib
Use natbib for citations in LaTeX output. This option is not
for use with the --citeproc option 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 --citeproc option 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 <span> tags with class math.
Then the MathJax JavaScript will render it. The URL should
point to the MathJax.js load script. If a URL is not provided,
a link to the Cloudflare CDN will be inserted.
--mathml
Convert TeX math to MathML (in epub3, docbook4, docbook5, jats,
html4 and html5). This is the default in odt output. Note that
currently only Firefox and Safari (and select e-book readers)
natively support MathML.
--webtex[=URL]
Convert TeX formulas to <img> tags that link to an external
script that converts formulas to images. The formula will be
URL-encoded and concatenated with the URL provided. For SVG im-
ages you can for example use --webtex https://la-
tex.codecogs.com/svg.latex?. If no URL is specified, the
CodeCogs URL generating PNGs will be used (https://la-
tex.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 sup-
port.
--katex[=URL]
Use KaTeX to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL
is the base URL for the KaTeX library. That directory should
contain a katex.min.js and a katex.min.css file. If a URL is
not provided, a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted.
--gladtex
Enclose TeX math in <eq> tags in HTML output. The resulting
HTML can then be processed by GladTeX to produce SVG images of
the typeset formulas and an HTML file with these images embed-
ded.
pandoc -s --gladtex input.md -o myfile.htex
gladtex -d image_dir myfile.htex
# produces myfile.html and images in image_dir
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 out-
put file specified with the -o option, or - (for stdout) if no
output file was specified. The remaining lines contain the com-
mand-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
EXIT CODES
If pandoc completes successfully, it will return exit code 0. Nonzero
exit codes have the following meanings:
Code Error
─────────────────────────────────
1 PandocIOError
3 PandocFailOnWarningError
4 PandocAppError
5 PandocTemplateError
6 PandocOptionError
21 PandocUnknownReaderError
22 PandocUnknownWriterError
23 PandocUnsupportedExten-
sionError
24 PandocCiteprocError
25 PandocBibliographyError
31 PandocEpubSubdirectoryEr-
ror
43 PandocPDFError
44 PandocXMLError
47 PandocPDFProgramNot-
FoundError
61 PandocHttpError
62 PandocShouldNeverHappen-
Error
63 PandocSomeError
64 PandocParseError
65 PandocParsecError
66 PandocMakePDFError
67 PandocSyntaxMapError
83 PandocFilterError
84 PandocLuaError
91 PandocMacroLoop
92 PandocUTF8DecodingError
93 PandocIpynbDecodingError
94 PandocUnsupported-
CharsetError
97 PandocCouldNotFind-
DataFileError
98 PandocCouldNotFindMeta-
dataFileError
99 PandocResourceNotFound
DEFAULTS FILES
The --defaults option may be used to specify a package of options, in
the form of a YAML file.
Fields that are omitted will just have their regular default values.
So a defaults file can be as simple as one line:
verbosity: INFO
In fields that expect a file path (or list of file paths), the follow-
ing syntax may be used to interpolate environment variables:
csl: ${HOME}/mycsldir/special.csl
${USERDATA} may also be used; this will always resolve to the user data
directory that is current when the defaults file is parsed, regardless
of the setting of the environment variable USERDATA.
${.} will resolve to the directory containing the defaults file itself.
This allows you to refer to resources contained in that directory:
epub-cover-image: ${.}/cover.jpg
epub-metadata: ${.}/meta.xml
resource-path:
- . # the working directory from which pandoc is run
- ${.}/images # the images subdirectory of the directory
# containing this defaults file
This environment variable interpolation syntax only works in fields
that expect file paths.
Defaults files can be placed in the defaults subdirectory of the user
data directory and used from any directory. For example, one could
create a file specifying defaults for writing letters, save it as let-
ter.yaml in the defaults subdirectory of the user data directory, and
then invoke these defaults from any directory using pandoc --defaults
letter or pandoc -dletter.
When multiple defaults are used, their contents will be combined.
Note that, where command-line arguments may be repeated (--metadata-
file, --css, --include-in-header, --include-before-body, --include-af-
ter-body, --variable, --metadata, --syntax-definition), the values
specified on the command line will combine with values specified in the
defaults file, rather than replacing them.
The following tables show the mapping between the command line and de-
faults file entries.
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
foo.md input-file: foo.md
foo.md bar.md input-files:
- foo.md
- bar.md
The value of input-files may be left empty to indicate input from
stdin, and it can be an empty sequence [] for no input.
General options
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--from markdown+emoji from: markdown+emoji
reader: markdown+emoji
--to markdown+hard_line_breaks to: markdown+hard_line_breaks
writer: markdown+hard_line_breaks
--output foo.pdf output-file: foo.pdf
--output - output-file:
--data-dir dir data-dir: dir
--defaults file defaults:
- file
--verbose verbosity: INFO
--quiet verbosity: ERROR
--fail-if-warnings fail-if-warnings: true
--sandbox sandbox: true
--log=FILE log-file: FILE
Options specified in a defaults file itself always have priority over
those in another file included with a defaults: entry.
verbosity can have the values ERROR, WARNING, or INFO.
Reader options
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--shift-heading-level-by -1 shift-heading-level-by: -1
--indented-code-classes python indented-code-classes:
- python
--default-image-extension ".jpg" default-image-extension: '.jpg'
--file-scope file-scope: true
--filter pandoc-citeproc \ filters:
--lua-filter count-words.lua \ - pandoc-citeproc
--filter special.lua - count-words.lua
- type: json
path: special.lua
--metadata key=value \ metadata:
--metadata key2 key: value
key2: true
--metadata-file meta.yaml metadata-files:
- meta.yaml
metadata-file: meta.yaml
--preserve-tabs preserve-tabs: true
--tab-stop 8 tab-stop: 8
--track-changes accept track-changes: accept
--extract-media dir extract-media: dir
--abbreviations abbrevs.txt abbreviations: abbrevs.txt
--trace trace: true
Metadata values specified in a defaults file are parsed as literal
string text, not Markdown.
Filters will be assumed to be Lua filters if they have the .lua exten-
sion, and JSON filters otherwise. But the filter type can also be
specified explicitly, as shown. Filters are run in the order speci-
fied. To include the built-in citeproc filter, use either citeproc or
{type: citeproc}.
General writer options
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--standalone standalone: true
--template letter template: letter
--variable key=val \ variables:
--variable key2 key: val
key2: true
--eol nl eol: nl
--dpi 300 dpi: 300
--wrap 60 wrap: 60
--columns 72 columns: 72
--table-of-contents table-of-contents: true
--toc toc: true
--toc-depth 3 toc-depth: 3
--strip-comments strip-comments: true
--no-highlight highlight-style: null
--highlight-style kate highlight-style: kate
--syntax-definition mylang.xml syntax-definitions:
- mylang.xml
syntax-definition: mylang.xml
--include-in-header inc.tex include-in-header:
- inc.tex
--include-before-body inc.tex include-before-body:
- inc.tex
--include-after-body inc.tex include-after-body:
- inc.tex
--resource-path .:foo resource-path: ['.','foo']
--request-header foo:bar request-headers:
- ["User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0"]
--no-check-certificate no-check-certificate: true
Options affecting specific writers
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--self-contained self-contained: true
--html-q-tags html-q-tags: true
--ascii ascii: true
--reference-links reference-links: true
--reference-location block reference-location: block
--markdown-headings atx markdown-headings: atx
--top-level-division chapter top-level-division: chapter
--number-sections number-sections: true
--number-offset=1,4 number-offset: \[1,4\]
--listings listings: true
--incremental incremental: true
--slide-level 2 slide-level: 2
--section-divs section-divs: true
--email-obfuscation references email-obfuscation: references
--id-prefix ch1 identifier-prefix: ch1
--title-prefix MySite title-prefix: MySite
--css styles/screen.css \ css:
--css styles/special.css - styles/screen.css
- styles/special.css
--reference-doc my.docx reference-doc: my.docx
--epub-cover-image cover.jpg epub-cover-image: cover.jpg
--epub-metadata meta.xml epub-metadata: meta.xml
--epub-embed-font special.otf \ epub-fonts:
--epub-embed-font headline.otf - special.otf
- headline.otf
--epub-chapter-level 2 epub-chapter-level: 2
--epub-subdirectory="" epub-subdirectory: ''
--ipynb-output best ipynb-output: best
--pdf-engine xelatex pdf-engine: xelatex
--pdf-engine-opt=--shell-escape pdf-engine-opts:
- '-shell-escape'
pdf-engine-opt: '-shell-escape'
Citation rendering
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--citeproc citeproc: true
--bibliography logic.bib metadata:
bibliography: logic.bib
--csl ieee.csl metadata:
csl: ieee.csl
--citation-abbreviations ab.json metadata:
citation-abbreviations: ab.json
--natbib cite-method: natbib
--biblatex cite-method: biblatex
cite-method can be citeproc, natbib, or biblatex. This only affects
LaTeX output. If you want to use citeproc to format citations, you
should also set `citeproc: true'.
If you need control over when the citeproc processing is done relative
to other filters, you should instead use citeproc in the list of fil-
ters (see above).
Math rendering in HTML
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--mathjax html-math-method:
method: mathjax
--mathml html-math-method:
method: mathml
--webtex html-math-method:
method: webtex
--katex html-math-method:
method: katex
--gladtex html-math-method:
method: gladtex
In addition to the values listed above, method can have the value
plain.
If the command line option accepts a URL argument, an url: field can be
added to html-math-method:.
Options for wrapper scripts
command line defaults file
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
--dump-args dump-args: true
--ignore-args ignore-args: true
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 de-
fault.context template, if you use -t context, or the default.ms tem-
plate, if you use -t ms, or the default.html template, if you use -t
html).
• docx and pptx have no template (however, you can use --reference-doc
to customize the output).
Templates contain variables, which allow for the inclusion of arbitrary
information at any point in the file. They may be set at the command
line using the -V/--variable option. If a variable is not set, pandoc
will look for the key in the document’s metadata, which can be set us-
ing either YAML metadata blocks or with the -M/--metadata option. In
addition, some variables are given default values by pandoc. See Vari-
ables below for a list of variables used in pandoc’s default templates.
If you use custom templates, you may need to revise them as pandoc
changes. We recommend tracking the changes in the default templates,
and modifying your custom templates accordingly. An easy way to do
this is to fork the pandoc-templates repository and merge in changes
after each pandoc release.
Template syntax
Comments
Anything between the sequence $-- and the end of the line will be
treated as a comment and omitted from the output.
Delimiters
To mark variables and control structures in the template, either $...$
or ${...} may be used as delimiters. The styles may also be mixed in
the same template, but the opening and closing delimiter must match in
each case. The opening delimiter may be followed by one or more spaces
or tabs, which will be ignored. The closing delimiter may be followed
by one or more spaces or tabs, which will be ignored.
To include a literal $ in the document, use $$.
Interpolated variables
A slot for an interpolated variable is a variable name surrounded by
matched delimiters. Variable names must begin with a letter and can
contain letters, numbers, _, -, and .. The keywords it, if, else, en-
dif, for, sep, and endfor may not be used as variable names. Examples:
$foo$
$foo.bar.baz$
$foo_bar.baz-bim$
$ foo $
${foo}
${foo.bar.baz}
${foo_bar.baz-bim}
${ foo }
Variable names with periods are used to get at structured variable val-
ues. So, for example, employee.salary will return the value of the
salary field of the object that is the value of the employee field.
• If the value of the variable is simple value, it will be rendered
verbatim. (Note that no escaping is done; the assumption is that the
calling program will escape the strings appropriately for the output
format.)
• If the value is a list, the values will be concatenated.
• If the value is a map, the string true will be rendered.
• Every other value will be rendered as the empty string.
Conditionals
A conditional begins with if(variable) (enclosed in matched delimiters)
and ends with endif (enclosed in matched delimiters). It may optional-
ly contain an else (enclosed in matched delimiters). The if section is
used if variable has a non-empty value, otherwise the else section is
used (if present). Examples:
$if(foo)$bar$endif$
$if(foo)$
$foo$
$endif$
$if(foo)$
part one
$else$
part two
$endif$
${if(foo)}bar${endif}
${if(foo)}
${foo}
${endif}
${if(foo)}
${ foo.bar }
${else}
no foo!
${endif}
The keyword elseif may be used to simplify complex nested conditionals:
$if(foo)$
XXX
$elseif(bar)$
YYY
$else$
ZZZ
$endif$
For loops
A for loop begins with for(variable) (enclosed in matched delimiters)
and ends with endfor (enclosed in matched delimiters.
• If variable is an array, the material inside the loop will be evalu-
ated repeatedly, with variable being set to each value of the array
in turn, and concatenated.
• If variable is a map, the material inside will be set to the map.
• If the value of the associated variable is not an array or a map, a
single iteration will be performed on its value.
Examples:
$for(foo)$$foo$$sep$, $endfor$
$for(foo)$
- $foo.last$, $foo.first$
$endfor$
${ for(foo.bar) }
- ${ foo.bar.last }, ${ foo.bar.first }
${ endfor }
$for(mymap)$
$it.name$: $it.office$
$endfor$
You may optionally specify a separator between consecutive values using
sep (enclosed in matched delimiters). The material between sep and the
endfor is the separator.
${ for(foo) }${ foo }${ sep }, ${ endfor }
Instead of using variable inside the loop, the special anaphoric key-
word it may be used.
${ for(foo.bar) }
- ${ it.last }, ${ it.first }
${ endfor }
Partials
Partials (subtemplates stored in different files) may be included by
using the name of the partial, followed by (), for example:
${ styles() }
Partials will be sought in the directory containing the main template.
The file name will be assumed to have the same extension as the main
template if it lacks an extension. When calling the partial, the full
name including file extension can also be used:
${ styles.html() }
(If a partial is not found in the directory of the template and the
template path is given as a relative path, it will also be sought in
the templates subdirectory of the user data directory.)
Partials may optionally be applied to variables using a colon:
${ date:fancy() }
${ articles:bibentry() }
If articles is an array, this will iterate over its values, applying
the partial bibentry() to each one. So the second example above is
equivalent to
${ for(articles) }
${ it:bibentry() }
${ endfor }
Note that the anaphoric keyword it must be used when iterating over
partials. In the above examples, the bibentry partial should contain
it.title (and so on) instead of articles.title.
Final newlines are omitted from included partials.
Partials may include other partials.
A separator between values of an array may be specified in square
brackets, immediately after the variable name or partial:
${months[, ]}$
${articles:bibentry()[; ]$
The separator in this case is literal and (unlike with sep in an ex-
plicit for loop) cannot contain interpolated variables or other tem-
plate directives.
Nesting
To ensure that content is “nested,” that is, subsequent lines indented,
use the ^ directive:
$item.number$ $^$$item.description$ ($item.price$)
In this example, if item.description has multiple lines, they will all
be indented to line up with the first line:
00123 A fine bottle of 18-year old
Oban whiskey. ($148)
To nest multiple lines to the same level, align them with the ^ direc-
tive in the template. For example:
$item.number$ $^$$item.description$ ($item.price$)
(Available til $item.sellby$.)
will produce
00123 A fine bottle of 18-year old
Oban whiskey. ($148)
(Available til March 30, 2020.)
If a variable occurs by itself on a line, preceded by whitespace and
not followed by further text or directives on the same line, and the
variable’s value contains multiple lines, it will be nested automati-
cally.
Breakable spaces
Normally, spaces in the template itself (as opposed to values of the
interpolated variables) are not breakable, but they can be made break-
able in part of the template by using the ~ keyword (ended with another
~).
$~$This long line may break if the document is rendered
with a short line length.$~$
Pipes
A pipe transforms the value of a variable or partial. Pipes are speci-
fied using a slash (/) between the variable name (or partial) and the
pipe name. Example:
$for(name)$
$name/uppercase$
$endfor$
$for(metadata/pairs)$
- $it.key$: $it.value$
$endfor$
$employee:name()/uppercase$
Pipes may be chained:
$for(employees/pairs)$
$it.key/alpha/uppercase$. $it.name$
$endfor$
Some pipes take parameters:
|----------------------|------------|
$for(employee)$
$it.name.first/uppercase/left 20 "| "$$it.name.salary/right 10 " | " " |"$
$endfor$
|----------------------|------------|
Currently the following pipes are predefined:
• pairs: Converts a map or array to an array of maps, each with key and
value fields. If the original value was an array, the key will be
the array index, starting with 1.
• uppercase: Converts text to uppercase.
• lowercase: Converts text to lowercase.
• length: Returns the length of the value: number of characters for a
textual value, number of elements for a map or array.
• reverse: Reverses a textual value or array, and has no effect on oth-
er values.
• first: Returns the first value of an array, if applied to a non-empty
array; otherwise returns the original value.
• last: Returns the last value of an array, if applied to a non-empty
array; otherwise returns the original value.
• rest: Returns all but the first value of an array, if applied to a
non-empty array; otherwise returns the original value.
• allbutlast: Returns all but the last value of an array, if applied to
a non-empty array; otherwise returns the original value.
• chomp: Removes trailing newlines (and breakable space).
• nowrap: Disables line wrapping on breakable spaces.
• alpha: Converts textual values that can be read as an integer into
lowercase alphabetic characters a..z (mod 26). This can be used to
get lettered enumeration from array indices. To get uppercase let-
ters, chain with uppercase.
• roman: Converts textual values that can be read as an integer into
lowercase roman numerials. This can be used to get lettered enumera-
tion from array indices. To get uppercase roman, chain with upper-
case.
• left n "leftborder" "rightborder": Renders a textual value in a block
of width n, aligned to the left, with an optional left and right bor-
der. Has no effect on other values. This can be used to align mate-
rial in tables. Widths are positive integers indicating the number
of characters. Borders are strings inside double quotes; literal "
and \ characters must be backslash-escaped.
• right n "leftborder" "rightborder": Renders a textual value in a
block of width n, aligned to the right, and has no effect on other
values.
• center n "leftborder" "rightborder": Renders a textual value in a
block of width n, aligned to the center, and has no effect on other
values.
Variables
Metadata variables
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
...
Note that if you just want to set PDF or HTML metadata, without
including a title block in the document itself, you can set the
title-meta, author-meta, and date-meta variables. (By default
these are set automatically, based on title, author, and date.)
The page title in HTML is set by pagetitle, which is equal to
title by default.
subtitle
document subtitle, included in HTML, EPUB, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and
docx documents
abstract
document summary, included in LaTeX, ConTeXt, AsciiDoc, and docx
documents
abstract-title
title of abstract, currently used only in HTML and EPUB. This
will be set automatically to a localized value, depending on
lang, but can be manually overridden.
keywords
list of keywords to be included in HTML, PDF, ODT, pptx, docx
and AsciiDoc metadata; repeat as for author, above
subject
document subject, included in ODT, PDF, docx, EPUB, and pptx
metadata
description
document description, included in ODT, docx and pptx metadata.
Some applications show this as Comments metadata.
category
document category, included in docx and pptx metadata
Additionally, any root-level string metadata, not included in ODT, docx
or pptx metadata is added as a custom property. The following YAML
metadata block for instance:
---
title: 'This is the title'
subtitle: "This is the subtitle"
author:
- Author One
- Author Two
description: |
This is a long
description.
It consists of two paragraphs
...
will include title, author and description as standard document proper-
ties and subtitle as a custom property when converting to docx, ODT or
pptx.
Language variables
lang identifies the main language of the document using IETF language
tags (following the BCP 47 standard), such as en or en-GB. The
Language subtag lookup tool can look up or verify these tags.
This affects most formats, and controls hyphenation in PDF out-
put when using LaTeX (through babel and polyglossia) or ConTeXt.
Use native pandoc Divs and Spans with the lang attribute to
switch the language:
---
lang: en-GB
...
Text in the main document language (British English).
::: {lang=fr-CA}
> Cette citation est écrite en français canadien.
:::
More text in English. ['Zitat auf Deutsch.']{lang=de}
dir the base script direction, either rtl (right-to-left) or ltr
(left-to-right).
For bidirectional documents, native pandoc spans and divs with
the dir attribute (value rtl or ltr) can be used to override the
base direction in some output formats. This may not always be
necessary if the final renderer (e.g. the browser, when generat-
ing HTML) supports the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
When using LaTeX for bidirectional documents, only the xelatex
engine is fully supported (use --pdf-engine=xelatex).
Variables for HTML
document-css
Enables inclusion of most of the CSS in the styles.html partial
(have a look with pandoc --print-default-data-file=tem-
plates/styles.html). Unless you use --css, this variable is set
to true by default. You can disable it with e.g. pandoc -M doc-
ument-css=false.
mainfont
sets the CSS font-family property on the html element.
fontsize
sets the base CSS font-size, which you’d usually set to
e.g. 20px, but it also accepts pt (12pt = 16px in most
browsers).
fontcolor
sets the CSS color property on the html element.
linkcolor
sets the CSS color property on all links.
monofont
sets the CSS font-family property on code elements.
monobackgroundcolor
sets the CSS background-color property on code elements and adds
extra padding.
linestretch
sets the CSS line-height property on the html element, which is
preferred to be unitless.
backgroundcolor
sets the CSS background-color property on the html element.
margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom
sets the corresponding CSS padding properties on the body ele-
ment.
To override or extend some CSS for just one document, include for exam-
ple:
---
header-includes: |
<style>
blockquote {
font-style: italic;
}
tr.even {
background-color: #f0f0f0;
}
td, th {
padding: 0.5em 2em 0.5em 0.5em;
}
tbody {
border-bottom: none;
}
</style>
---
Variables for HTML math
classoption
when using KaTeX, you can render display math equations flush
left using YAML metadata or with -M classoption=fleqn.
Variables for HTML slides
These affect HTML output when [producing slide shows with pandoc].
institute
author affiliations: can be a list when there are multiple au-
thors
revealjs-url
base URL for reveal.js documents (defaults to
https://unpkg.com/reveal.js@^4/)
s5-url base URL for S5 documents (defaults to s5/default)
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)
title-slide-attributes
additional attributes for the title slide of reveal.js slide
shows. See [background in reveal.js and beamer] for an example.
All reveal.js configuration options are available as variables. To
turn off boolean flags that default to true in reveal.js, use 0.
Variables for Beamer slides
These variables change the appearance of PDF slides using beamer.
aspectratio
slide aspect ratio (43 for 4:3 [default], 169 for 16:9, 1610 for
16:10, 149 for 14:9, 141 for 1.41:1, 54 for 5:4, 32 for 3:2)
`beameroption
add extra beamer option with \setbeameroption{}
institute
author affiliations: can be a list when there are multiple au-
thors
logo logo image for slides
navigation
controls navigation symbols (default is empty for no navigation
symbols; other valid values are frame, vertical, and horizontal)
section-titles
enables “title pages” for new sections (default is true)
theme, colortheme, fonttheme, innertheme, outertheme
beamer themes
themeoptions
options for LaTeX beamer themes (a list).
titlegraphic
image for title slide
Variables for PowerPoint
These variables control the visual aspects of a slide show that are not
easily controlled via templates.
monofont
font to use for code.
Variables for LaTeX
Pandoc uses these variables when creating a PDF with a LaTeX engine.
Layout
block-headings
make \paragraph and \subparagraph (fourth- and fifth-level head-
ings, or fifth- and sixth-level with book classes) free-standing
rather than run-in; requires further formatting to distinguish
from \subsubsection (third- or fourth-level headings). Instead
of using this option, KOMA-Script can adjust headings more ex-
tensively:
---
documentclass: scrartcl
header-includes: |
\RedeclareSectionCommand[
beforeskip=-10pt plus -2pt minus -1pt,
afterskip=1sp plus -1sp minus 1sp,
font=\normalfont\itshape]{paragraph}
\RedeclareSectionCommand[
beforeskip=-10pt plus -2pt minus -1pt,
afterskip=1sp plus -1sp minus 1sp,
font=\normalfont\scshape,
indent=0pt]{subparagraph}
...
classoption
option for document class, e.g. oneside; repeat for multiple op-
tions:
---
classoption:
- twocolumn
- landscape
...
documentclass
document class: usually one of the standard classes, article,
book, and report; the KOMA-Script equivalents, scrartcl, scr-
book, and scrreprt, which default to smaller margins; or memoir
geometry
option for geometry package, e.g. margin=1in; repeat for multi-
ple options:
---
geometry:
- top=30mm
- left=20mm
- heightrounded
...
hyperrefoptions
option for hyperref package, e.g. linktoc=all; repeat for multi-
ple options:
---
hyperrefoptions:
- linktoc=all
- pdfwindowui
- pdfpagemode=FullScreen
...
indent if true, pandoc will use document class settings for indentation
(the default LaTeX template otherwise removes indentation and
adds space between paragraphs)
linestretch
adjusts line spacing using the setspace package, e.g. 1.25, 1.5
margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom
sets margins if geometry is not used (otherwise geometry over-
rides these)
pagestyle
control \pagestyle{}: the default article class supports plain
(default), empty (no running heads or page numbers), and head-
ings (section titles in running heads)
papersize
paper size, e.g. letter, a4
secnumdepth
numbering depth for sections (with --number-sections option or
numbersections variable)
beamerarticle
produce an article from Beamer slides
Fonts
fontenc
allows font encoding to be specified through fontenc package
(with pdflatex); default is T1 (see LaTeX font encodings guide)
fontfamily
font package for use with pdflatex: TeX Live includes many op-
tions, documented in the LaTeX Font Catalogue. The default is
Latin Modern.
fontfamilyoptions
options for package used as fontfamily; repeat for multiple op-
tions. For example, to use the Libertine font with proportional
lowercase (old-style) figures through the libertinus package:
---
fontfamily: libertinus
fontfamilyoptions:
- osf
- p
...
fontsize
font size for body text. The standard classes allow 10pt, 11pt,
and 12pt. To use another size, set documentclass to one of the
KOMA-Script classes, such as scrartcl or scrbook.
mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJKmainfont
font families for use with xelatex or lualatex: take the name of
any system font, using the fontspec package. CJKmainfont uses
the xecjk package.
mainfontoptions, sansfontoptions, monofontoptions, mathfontoptions,
CJKoptions
options to use with mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJK-
mainfont in xelatex and lualatex. Allow for any choices avail-
able through fontspec; repeat for multiple options. For exam-
ple, to use the TeX Gyre version of Palatino with lowercase fig-
ures:
---
mainfont: TeX Gyre Pagella
mainfontoptions:
- Numbers=Lowercase
- Numbers=Proportional
...
microtypeoptions
options to pass to the microtype package
Links
colorlinks
add color to link text; automatically enabled if any of linkcol-
or, filecolor, citecolor, urlcolor, or toccolor are set
linkcolor, filecolor, citecolor, urlcolor, toccolor
color for internal links, external links, citation links, linked
URLs, and links in table of contents, respectively: uses options
allowed by xcolor, including the dvipsnames, svgnames, and
x11names lists
links-as-notes
causes links to be printed as footnotes
Front matter
lof, lot
include list of figures, list of tables
thanks 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
BibLaTeX Bibliographies
These variables function when using BibLaTeX for citation rendering.
biblatexoptions
list of options for biblatex
biblio-style
bibliography style, when used with --natbib and --biblatex.
biblio-title
bibliography title, when used with --natbib and --biblatex.
bibliography
bibliography to use for resolving references
natbiboptions
list of options for natbib
Variables for ConTeXt
Pandoc uses these variables when creating a PDF with ConTeXt.
fontsize
font size for body text (e.g. 10pt, 12pt)
headertext, footertext
text to be placed in running header or footer (see ConTeXt Head-
ers and Footers); repeat up to four times for different place-
ment
indenting
controls indentation of paragraphs, e.g. yes,small,next (see
ConTeXt Indentation); repeat for multiple options
interlinespace
adjusts line spacing, e.g. 4ex (using setupinterlinespace); re-
peat for multiple options
layout options for page margins and text arrangement (see ConTeXt Lay-
out); repeat for multiple options
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, boldslant-
ed, type, cap, small
lof, lot
include list of figures, list of tables
mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont
font families: take the name of any system font (see ConTeXt
Font Switching)
margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom
sets margins, if layout is not used (otherwise layout overrides
these)
pagenumbering
page number style and location (using setuppagenumbering); re-
peat for multiple options
papersize
paper size, e.g. letter, A4, landscape (see ConTeXt Paper Set-
up); repeat for multiple options
pdfa adds to the preamble the setup necessary to generate PDF/A of
the type specified, e.g. 1a:2005, 2a. If no type is specified
(i.e. the value is set to True, by e.g. --metadata=pdfa or
pdfa: true in a YAML metadata block), 1b:2005 will be used as
default, for reasons of backwards compatibility. Using --vari-
able=pdfa without specified value is not supported. To success-
fully generate PDF/A the required ICC color profiles have to be
available and the content and all included files (such as im-
ages) have to be standard conforming. The ICC profiles and out-
put intent may be specified using the variables pdfaiccprofile
and pdfaintent. See also ConTeXt PDFA for more details.
pdfaiccprofile
when used in conjunction with pdfa, specifies the ICC profile to
use in the PDF, e.g. default.cmyk. If left unspecified,
sRGB.icc is used as default. May be repeated to include multi-
ple profiles. Note that the profiles have to be available on
the system. They can be obtained from ConTeXt ICC Profiles.
pdfaintent
when used in conjunction with pdfa, specifies the output intent
for the colors, e.g. ISO coated v2 300\letterpercent\space (ECI)
If left unspecified, sRGB IEC61966-2.1 is used as default.
toc include table of contents (can also be set using --toc/--table-
of-contents)
whitespace
spacing between paragraphs, e.g. none, small (using setupwhites-
pace)
includesource
include all source documents as file attachments in the PDF file
Variables for wkhtmltopdf
Pandoc uses these variables when creating a PDF with wkhtmltopdf. The
--css option also affects the output.
footer-html, header-html
add information to the header and footer
margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom
set the page margins
papersize
sets the PDF paper size
Variables for man pages
adjusting
adjusts text to left (l), right (r), center (c), or both (b)
margins
footer footer in man pages
header header in man pages
hyphenate
if true (the default), hyphenation will be used
section
section number in man pages
Variables for ms
fontfamily
font family (e.g. T or P)
indent paragraph indent (e.g. 2m)
lineheight
line height (e.g. 12p)
pointsize
point size (e.g. 10p)
Variables set automatically
Pandoc sets these variables automatically in response to options or
document contents; users can also modify them. These vary depending on
the output format, and include the following:
body body of document
date-meta
the date variable converted to ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD, included in
all HTML based formats (dzslides, epub, html, html4, html5, re-
vealjs, s5, slideous, slidy). The recognized formats for date
are: mm/dd/yyyy, mm/dd/yy, yyyy-mm-dd (ISO 8601), dd MM yyyy
(e.g. either 02 Apr 2018 or 02 April 2018), MM dd, yyyy
(e.g. Apr. 02, 2018 or April 02,
2018),yyyy[mm[dd]]](e.g.20180402, 201804 or 2018).
header-includes
contents specified by -H/--include-in-header (may have multiple
values)
include-before
contents specified by -B/--include-before-body (may have multi-
ple values)
include-after
contents specified by -A/--include-after-body (may have multiple
values)
meta-json
JSON representation of all of the document’s metadata. Field
values are transformed to the selected output format.
numbersections
non-null value if -N/--number-sections was specified
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 follow-
ing 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.
If you need absolute paths, use e.g. $curdir$/$sourcefile$.
curdir working directory from which pandoc is run.
toc non-null value if --toc/--table-of-contents was specified
toc-title
title of table of contents (works only with EPUB, HTML, re-
vealjs, opendocument, odt, docx, pptx, beamer, LaTeX)
EXTENSIONS
The behavior of some of the readers and writers can be adjusted by en-
abling or disabling various extensions.
An extension can be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name and
disabled by adding -EXTENSION. For example, --from mark-
down_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 Pan-
doc’s Markdown below (See Markdown variants for commonmark and gfm.)
In the following, extensions that also work for other formats are cov-
ered.
Note that markdown extensions added to the ipynb format affect Markdown
cells in Jupyter notebooks (as do command-line options like --atx-head-
ers).
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 re-
verse 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.
Headings and sections
Extension: auto_identifiers
A heading without an explicitly specified identifier will be automati-
cally assigned a unique identifier based on the heading text.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
input formats
markdown, latex, rst, mediawiki, textile
output formats
markdown, muse
enabled by default in
markdown, muse
The default algorithm used to derive the identifier from the heading
text is:
• Remove all formatting, links, etc.
• Remove all footnotes.
• Remove all non-alphanumeric characters, 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,
Heading Identifier
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Heading identifiers in heading-identifiers-in-
HTML html
Maître d'hôtel maître-dhôtel
*Dogs*?--in *my* house? dogs--in-my-house
[HTML], [S5], or [RTF]? html-s5-or-rtf
3. Applications applications
33 section
These rules should, in most cases, allow one to determine the identifi-
er from the heading text. The exception is when several headings have
the same text; in this case, the first will get an identifier as de-
scribed above; the second will get the same identifier with -1 append-
ed; the third with -2; and so on.
(However, a different algorithm is used if gfm_auto_identifiers is en-
abled; see below.)
These identifiers are used to provide link targets in the table of con-
tents generated by the --toc|--table-of-contents option. They also
make it easy to provide links from one section of a document to anoth-
er. A link to this section, for example, might look like this:
See the section on
[heading identifiers](#heading-identifiers-in-html-latex-and-context).
Note, however, that this method of providing links to sections works
only in HTML, LaTeX, and ConTeXt formats.
If the --section-divs option is specified, then each section will be
wrapped in a section (or a div, if html4 was specified), and the iden-
tifier will be attached to the enclosing <section> (or <div>) tag
rather than the heading itself. This allows entire sections to be ma-
nipulated 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 let-
ters are omitted.
Extension: gfm_auto_identifiers
Changes the algorithm used by auto_identifiers to conform to GitHub’s
method. Spaces are converted to dashes (-), uppercase characters to
lowercase characters, and punctuation characters other than - and _ are
removed. Emojis are replaced by their names.
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 are described in more detail in their respec-
tive sections of Pandoc’s Markdown:
• raw_html allows HTML elements which are not representable in pandoc’s
AST to be parsed as raw HTML. By default, this is disabled for HTML
input.
• raw_tex allows raw LaTeX, TeX, and ConTeXt to be included in a docu-
ment. This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following for-
mats (in addition to markdown):
input formats
latex, textile, html (environments, \ref, and \eqref only),
ipynb
output formats
textile, commonmark
Note: as applied to ipynb, raw_html and raw_tex affect not only raw
TeX in markdown cells, but data with mime type text/html in output
cells. Since the ipynb reader attempts to preserve the richest pos-
sible outputs when several options are given, you will get best re-
sults if you disable raw_html and raw_tex when converting to formats
like docx which don’t allow raw html or tex.
• native_divs causes HTML div elements to be parsed as native pandoc
Div blocks. If you want them to be parsed as raw HTML, use -f html-
native_divs+raw_html.
• native_spans causes HTML span elements to be parsed as native pandoc
Span inlines. If you want them to be parsed as raw HTML, use -f
html-native_spans+raw_html. If you want to drop all divs and spans
when converting HTML to Markdown, you can use pandoc -f html-na-
tive_divs-native_spans -t markdown.
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 head-
ings 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 in-
dented one space, so they will not be treated as Haskell code. In
addition, headings 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 in-
side 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
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: native_numbering
Enables native numbering of figures and tables. Enumeration starts at
1.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
output formats
odt, opendocument, docx
Extension: xrefs_name
Links to headings, figures and tables inside the document are substi-
tuted with cross-references that will use the name or caption of the
referenced item. The original link text is replaced once the generated
document is refreshed. This extension can be combined with xrefs_num-
ber in which case numbers will appear before the name.
Text in cross-references is only made consistent with the referenced
item once the document has been refreshed.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
output formats
odt, opendocument
Extension: xrefs_number
Links to headings, figures and tables inside the document are substi-
tuted with cross-references that will use the number of the referenced
item. The original link text is discarded. This extension can be com-
bined with xrefs_name in which case the name or caption numbers will
appear after the number.
For the xrefs_number to be useful heading numbers must be enabled in
the generated document, also table and figure captions must be enabled
using for example the native_numbering extension.
Numbers in cross-references are only visible in the final document once
it has been refreshed.
This extension can be enabled/disabled for the following formats:
output formats
odt, opendocument
Extension: styles
When converting from docx, 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: raw_markdown
In the ipynb input format, this causes Markdown cells to be included as
raw Markdown blocks (allowing lossless round-tripping) rather than be-
ing parsed. Use this only when you are targeting ipynb or a markdown-
based output format.
Extension: citations
Some aspects of Pandoc’s Markdown citation syntax are also accepted in
org input.
Extension: fancy_lists
Some aspects of Pandoc’s Markdown fancy lists are also accepted in org
input, mimicking the option org-list-allow-alphabetical in Emacs. As
in Org Mode, enabling this extension allows lowercase and uppercase al-
phabetical markers for ordered lists to be parsed in addition to arabic
ones. Note that for Org, this does not include roman numerals or the #
placeholder that are enabled by the extension in Pandoc’s Markdown.
Extension: element_citations
In the jats output formats, this causes reference items to be replaced
with <element-citation> elements. These elements are not influenced by
CSL styles, but all information on the item is included in tags.
Extension: ntb
In the context output format this enables the use of Natural Tables
(TABLE) instead of the default Extreme Tables (xtables). Natural ta-
bles allow more fine-grained global customization but come at a perfor-
mance penalty compared to extreme tables.
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 original Markdown. Except where noted, these differ-
ences can be suppressed by using the markdown_strict format instead of
markdown. Extensions can be enabled or disabled to specify the behav-
ior 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 ta-
bles, 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 para-
graphs 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.
Headings
There are two kinds of headings: Setext and ATX.
Setext-style headings
A setext-style heading is a line of text “underlined” with a row of =
signs (for a level-one heading) or - signs (for a level-two heading):
A level-one heading
===================
A level-two heading
-------------------
The heading text can contain inline formatting, such as emphasis (see
Inline formatting, below).
ATX-style headings
An ATX-style heading 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 heading level:
## A level-two heading
### A level-three heading ###
As with setext-style headings, the heading text can contain formatting:
# A level-one heading with a [link](/url) and *emphasis*
Extension: blank_before_header
Original Markdown syntax does not require a blank line before a head-
ing. 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 open-
ing #s of an ATX heading and the heading text, so that #5 bolt and
#hashtag count as headings. With this extension, pandoc does require
the space.
Heading identifiers
See also the auto_identifiers extension above.
Extension: header_attributes
Headings can be assigned attributes using this syntax at the end of the
line containing the heading text:
{#identifier .class .class key=value key=value}
Thus, for example, the following headings will all be assigned the
identifier foo:
# My heading {#foo}
## My heading ## {#foo}
My other heading {#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 informa-
tion. 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, Jira
markup, and AsciiDoc writers.
Headings with the class unnumbered will not be numbered, even if --num-
ber-sections is specified. A single hyphen (-) in an attribute context
is equivalent to .unnumbered, and preferable in non-English documents.
So,
# My heading {-}
is just the same as
# My heading {.unnumbered}
If the unlisted class is present in addition to unnumbered, the heading
will not be included in a table of contents. (Currently this feature
is only implemented for certain formats: those based on LaTeX and HTML,
PowerPoint, and RTF.)
Extension: implicit_header_references
Pandoc behaves as if reference links have been defined for each head-
ing. So, to link to a heading
# Heading identifiers in HTML
you can simply write
[Heading identifiers in HTML]
or
[Heading identifiers in HTML][]
or
[the section on heading identifiers][heading identifiers in
HTML]
instead of giving the identifier explicitly:
[Heading identifiers in HTML](#heading-identifiers-in-html)
If there are multiple headings with identical text, the corresponding
reference will link to the first one only, and you will need to use ex-
plicit 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
heading 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 headings), with each line preceded by a > character and an op-
tional space. (The > need not start at the left margin, but it should
not be indented more than three spaces.)
> This is a block quote. This
> paragraph has two lines.
>
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
> 2. Second item.
A “lazy” form, which requires the > character only on the first line of
each block, is also allowed:
> This is a block quote. This
paragraph has two lines.
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
2. Second item.
Among the block elements that can be contained in a block quote are
other block quotes. That is, block quotes can be nested:
> This is a block quote.
>
> > A block quote within a block quote.
If the > character is followed by an optional space, that space will be
considered part of the block quote marker and not part of the indenta-
tion 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
Original 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 verba-
tim text: that is, special characters do not trigger special format-
ting, 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 of tildes that must be at least as long as the starting
row. Everything between these lines is treated as code. No indenta-
tion 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 Pow-
erPoint. If highlighting is supported for your output format and lan-
guage, then the code block above will appear highlighted, with numbered
lines. (To see which languages are supported, type pandoc --list-high-
light-languages.) Otherwise, the code block above will appear as fol-
lows:
<pre id="mycode" class="haskell numberLines" startFrom="100">
<code>
...
</code>
</pre>
The numberLines (or number-lines) class will cause the lines of the
code block to be numbered, starting with 1 or the value of the start-
From 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 for-
matted as Markdown. This is useful for verse and addresses:
| The limerick packs laughs anatomical
| In space that is quite economical.
| But the good ones I've seen
| So seldom are clean
| And the clean ones so seldom are comical
| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718
The lines can be hard-wrapped if needed, but the continuation line must
begin with a space.
| The Right Honorable Most Venerable and Righteous Samuel L.
Constable, Jr.
| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718
Inline formatting (such as emphasis) is allowed in the content, but not
block-level formatting (such as block quotes or lists).
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 indent-
ed one, two, or three spaces. The bullet must be followed by white-
space.
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 con-
tent. However, subsequent paragraphs must be preceded by a blank line
and indented to line up with the first non-space content after the list
marker.
* First paragraph.
Continued.
* Second paragraph. With a code block, which must be indented
eight spaces:
{ code }
Exception: if the list marker is followed by an indented code block,
which must begin 5 spaces after the list marker, then subsequent para-
graphs 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,” in-
stead 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 be-
gin with enumerators rather than bullets.
In original Markdown, enumerators are decimal numbers followed by a pe-
riod and a space. The numbers themselves are ignored, so there is no
difference between this list:
1. one
2. two
3. three
and this one:
5. one
7. two
1. three
Extension: fancy_lists
Unlike original 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 fol-
lowed by a single right-parentheses or period. They must be separated
from the text that follows by at least one space, and, if the list
marker is a capital letter with a period, by at least two spaces.
The fancy_lists extension also allows `#' to be used as an ordered list
marker in place of a numeral:
#. one
#. two
Extension: startnum
Pandoc also pays attention to the type of list marker used, and to the
starting number, and both of these are preserved where possible in the
output format. Thus, the following yields a list with numbers followed
by a single parenthesis, starting with 9, and a sublist with lowercase
roman numerals:
9) Ninth
10) Tenth
11) Eleventh
i. subone
ii. subtwo
iii. subthree
Pandoc will start a new list each time a different type of list marker
is used. So, the following will create three lists:
(2) Two
(5) Three
1. Four
* Five
If default list markers are desired, use #.:
#. one
#. two
#. three
Extension: task_lists
Pandoc supports task lists, using the syntax of GitHub-Flavored Mark-
down.
- [ ] an unchecked task list item
- [x] checked item
Definition lists
Extension: definition_lists
Pandoc supports definition lists, using the syntax of PHP Markdown Ex-
tra with some extensions.
Term 1
: Definition 1
Term 2 with *inline markup*
: Definition 2
{ some code, part of Definition 2 }
Third paragraph of definition 2.
Each term must fit on one line, which may optionally be followed by a
blank line, and must be followed by one or more definitions. A defini-
tion 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 (not
including the first line) should be indented four spaces. However, as
with other Markdown lists, you can “lazily” omit indentation except at
the beginning of a paragraph or other block element:
Term 1
: Definition
with lazy continuation.
Second paragraph of the definition.
If you leave space before the definition (as in the example above), the
text of the definition will be treated as a paragraph. In some output
formats, this will mean greater spacing between term/definition pairs.
For a more compact definition list, omit the space before the defini-
tion:
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 wrap-
ping, can be activated with compact_definition_lists: see Non-default
extensions, below.)
Numbered example lists
Extension: example_lists
The special list marker @ can be used for sequentially numbered exam-
ples. 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 docu-
ment:
(@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, ex-
ample lists always 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.
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
<!-- end of list -->
{ my code block }
You can use the same trick if you want two consecutive lists instead of
one big list:
1. one
2. two
3. three
<!-- -->
1. uno
2. dos
3. tres
Horizontal rules
A line containing a row of three or more *, -, or _ characters (option-
ally 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 il-
lustrated 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 Left Center Default
------- ------ ---------- -------
12 12 12 12
123 123 123 123
1 1 1 1
Table: Demonstration of simple table syntax.
The header and table rows must each fit on one line. Column alignments
are determined by the position of the header text relative to the
dashed line below it:
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the right side
but extends beyond it on the left, the column is right-aligned.
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the left side but
extends beyond it on the right, the column is left-aligned.
• If the dashed line extends beyond the header text on both sides, the
column is centered.
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on both sides, the
default alignment is used (in most cases, this will be left).
The table must end with a blank line, or a line of dashes followed by a
blank line.
The column header row may be omitted, provided a dashed line is used to
end the table. For example:
------- ------ ---------- -------
12 12 12 12
123 123 123 123
1 1 1 1
------- ------ ---------- -------
When the header row is 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, respec-
tively.
Extension: multiline_tables
Multiline tables allow header and table rows to span multiple lines of
text (but cells that span multiple columns or rows of the table are not
supported). Here is an example:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Centered Default Right Left
Header Aligned Aligned Aligned
----------- ------- --------------- -------------------------
First row 12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
Second row 5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
rows.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Table: Here's the caption. It, too, may span
multiple lines.
These work like simple tables, but with the following differences:
• They must begin with a row of dashes, before the header text (unless
the header row is 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.
The header 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 a header.
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 |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
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 (M-x table-
insert).
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 head-
er cannot be omitted. To simulate a headerless table, include a header
with blank cells.
Since the pipes indicate column boundaries, columns need not be verti-
cally aligned, as they are in the above example. So, this is a per-
fectly 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 any line of the markdown
source is longer than the column width (see --columns), then the table
will take up the full text width and the cell contents will wrap, with
the relative cell widths determined by the number of dashes in the line
separating the table header from the table body. (For example ---|-
would make the first column 3/4 and the second column 1/4 of the full
text width.) On the other hand, if no lines are wider than column
width, then cell contents will not be wrapped, and the cells will be
sized to their contents.
Note: pandoc also recognizes pipe tables of the following form, as can
be produced by Emacs’ orgtbl-mode:
| One | Two |
|-----+-------|
| my | table |
| is | nice |
The difference is that + is used instead of |. Other orgtbl features
are not supported. In particular, to get non-default column alignment,
you’ll need to add colons as above.
Metadata blocks
Extension: pandoc_title_block
If the file begins with a title block
% title
% author(s) (separated by semicolons)
% date
it will be parsed as bibliographic information, not regular text. (It
will be used, for example, in the title of standalone LaTeX or HTML
output.) The block may contain just a title, a title and an author, or
all three elements. If you want to include an author but no title, or
a title and a date but no author, you need a blank line:
%
% Author
% My title
%
% June 15, 2006
The title may occupy multiple lines, but continuation lines must begin
with leading space, thus:
% My title
on multiple lines
If a document has multiple authors, the authors may be put on separate
lines with leading space, or separated by semicolons, or both. So, all
of the following are equivalent:
% Author One
Author Two
% Author One; Author Two
% Author One;
Author Two
The date must fit on one line.
All three metadata fields may contain standard inline formatting (ital-
ics, links, footnotes, etc.).
Title blocks will always be parsed, but they will affect the output on-
ly 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 be-
ginning 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 oth-
er header and footer information from the title line. The title is as-
sumed 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 head-
er text. Thus,
% PANDOC(1)
will yield a man page with the title PANDOC and section 1.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals
will also have “Pandoc User Manuals” in the footer.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals | Version 4.0
will also have “Version 4.0” in the header.
Extension: yaml_metadata_block
A YAML metadata block is a valid YAML object, delimited by a line of
three hyphens (---) at the top and a line of three hyphens (---) or
three dots (...) at the bottom. A YAML metadata block may occur any-
where 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 con-
catenates input files when several are provided, you may also keep the
metadata in a separate YAML file and pass it to pandoc as an argument,
along with your Markdown files:
pandoc chap1.md chap2.md chap3.md metadata.yaml -s -o book.html
Just be sure that the YAML file begins with --- and ends with --- or
....) Alternatively, you can use the --metadata-file option. Using
that approach however, you cannot reference content (like footnotes)
from the main markdown input document.
Metadata will be taken from the fields of the YAML object and added to
any existing document metadata. Metadata can contain lists and objects
(nested arbitrarily), but all string scalars will be interpreted as
Markdown. Fields with names ending in an underscore will be ignored by
pandoc. (They may be given a role by external processors.) Field
names must not be interpretable as YAML numbers or boolean values (so,
for example, yes, True, and 15 cannot be used as field names).
A document may contain multiple metadata blocks. If two metadata
blocks attempt to set the same field, the value from the second block
will be taken.
Each metadata block is handled internally as an independent YAML docu-
ment. This means, for example, that any YAML anchors defined in a
block cannot be referenced in another block.
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 be-
ginning of the document.
Note that YAML escaping rules must be followed. Thus, for example, if
a title contains a colon, it must be quoted, and if it contains a back-
slash escape, then it must be ensured that it is not treated as a YAML
escape sequence. The pipe character (|) can be used to begin an in-
dented block that will be interpreted literally, without need for es-
caping. This form is necessary when the field contains blank lines or
block-level formatting:
---
title: 'This is the title: it contains a colon'
author:
- Author One
- Author Two
keywords: [nothing, nothingness]
abstract: |
This is the abstract.
It consists of two paragraphs.
...
The literal block after the | must be indented relative to the line
containing the |. If it is not, the YAML will be invalid and pandoc
will not interpret it as metadata. For an overview of the complex
rules governing YAML, see the Wikipedia entry on YAML syntax.
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:
<p>This is the abstract.</p>
<p>It consists of two paragraphs.</p>
Variables can contain arbitrary YAML structures, but the template must
match this structure. The author variable in the default templates ex-
pects a simple list or string, but can be changed to support more com-
plicated 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 exten-
sion), or it will be interpreted as markdown. For example:
header-includes:
- |
```{=latex}
\let\oldsection\section
\renewcommand{\section}[1]{\clearpage\oldsection{#1}}
```
Note: the yaml_metadata_block extension works with commonmark as well
as markdown (and it is enabled by default in gfm and commonmark_x).
However, in these formats the following restrictions apply:
• The YAML metadata block must occur at the beginning of the document
(and there can be only one). If multiple files are given as argu-
ments to pandoc, only the first can be a YAML metadata block.
• The leaf nodes of the YAML structure are parsed in isolation from
each other and from the rest of the document. So, for example, you
can’t use a reference link in these contexts if the link definition
is somewhere else in the document.
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
<em>*hello*</em>
instead of
<strong>hello</strong>
This rule is easier to remember than original Markdown’s rule, which
allows only the following characters to be backslash-escaped:
\`*_{}[]()>#+-.!
(However, if the markdown_strict format is used, the original Markdown
rule will be used.)
A backslash-escaped space is parsed as a nonbreaking space. In TeX
output, it will appear as ~. In HTML and XML output, it will appear as
a literal unicode nonbreaking space character (note that it will thus
actually look “invisible” in the generated HTML source; you can still
use the --ascii command-line option to make it appear as an explicit
entity).
A backslash-escaped newline (i.e. a backslash occurring at the end of a
line) is parsed as a hard line break. It will appear in TeX output as
\\ and in HTML as <br />. This is a nice alternative to Markdown’s
“invisible” way of indicating hard line breaks using two trailing spa-
ces 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\*.
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 ^
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.
The text between ^...^ or ~...~ may not contain spaces or newlines. If
the superscripted or subscripted text contains spaces, these spaces
must be escaped with backslashes. (This is to prevent accidental su-
perscripting and subscripting through the ordinary use of ~ and ^, and
also bad interactions with footnotes.) 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 back-
ticks will be ignored.)
The general rule is that a verbatim span starts with a string of con-
secutive backticks (optionally followed by a space) and ends with a
string of the same number of backticks (optionally preceded by a
space).
Note that backslash-escapes (and other Markdown constructs) do not work
in verbatim contexts:
This is a backslash followed by an asterisk: `\*`.
Extension: inline_code_attributes
Attributes can be attached to verbatim text, just as with fenced code
blocks:
`<$>`{.haskell}
Underline
To underline text, use the underline class:
[Underline]{.underline}
Or, without the bracketed_spans extension (but with native_spans):
<span class="underline">Underline</span>
This will work in all output formats that support underline.
Small caps
To write small caps, use the smallcaps class:
[Small caps]{.smallcaps}
Or, without the bracketed_spans extension:
<span class="smallcaps">Small caps</span>
For compatibility with other Markdown flavors, CSS is also supported:
<span style="font-variant:small-caps;">Small caps</span>
This will work in all output formats that support small caps.
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 en-
close text in literal $ characters, backslash-escape them and they
won’t be treated as math delimiters.
For display math, use $$ delimiters. (In this case, the delimiters may
be separated from the formula by whitespace. However, there can be no
blank lines betwen the opening and closing $$ delimiters.)
TeX math will be printed in all output formats. How it is rendered de-
pends on the output format:
LaTeX It will appear verbatim surrounded by \(...\) (for inline math)
or \[...\] (for display math).
Markdown, Emacs Org mode, ConTeXt, ZimWiki
It will appear verbatim surrounded by $...$ (for inline math) or
$$...$$ (for display math).
XWiki It will appear verbatim surrounded by {{formula}}..{{/formula}}.
reStructuredText
It will be rendered using an interpreted text role :math:.
AsciiDoc
For AsciiDoc output format (-t asciidoc) it will appear verbatim
surrounded by latexmath:[$...$] (for inline math) or [latex-
math]++++\[...\]+++ (for display math). For AsciiDoctor output
format (-t asciidoctor) the LaTex delimiters ($..$ and \[..\])
are omitted.
Texinfo
It will be rendered inside a @math command.
roff man, Jira markup
It will be rendered verbatim without $’s.
MediaWiki, DokuWiki
It will be rendered inside <math> tags.
Textile
It will be rendered inside <span class="math"> tags.
RTF, OpenDocument
It will be rendered, if possible, using Unicode characters, and
will otherwise appear verbatim.
ODT It will be rendered, if possible, using MathML.
DocBook
If the --mathml flag is used, it will be rendered using MathML
in an inlineequation or informalequation tag. Otherwise it will
be rendered, if possible, using Unicode characters.
Docx It will be rendered using OMML math markup.
FictionBook2
If the --webtex option is used, formulas are rendered as images
using CodeCogs or other compatible web service, downloaded and
embedded in the e-book. Otherwise, they will appear verbatim.
HTML, Slidy, DZSlides, S5, EPUB
The way math is rendered in HTML will depend on the command-line
options selected. Therefore see Math rendering in HTML above.
Raw HTML
Extension: raw_html
Markdown allows you to insert raw HTML (or DocBook) anywhere in a docu-
ment (except verbatim contexts, where <, >, and & are interpreted lit-
erally). (Technically this is not an extension, since standard Mark-
down allows it, but it has been made an extension so that it can be
disabled if desired.)
The raw HTML is passed through unchanged in HTML, S5, Slidy, Slideous,
DZSlides, EPUB, Markdown, CommonMark, Emacs Org mode, and Textile out-
put, and suppressed in other formats.
For a more explicit way of including raw HTML in a Markdown document,
see the raw_attribute extension.
In the CommonMark format, if raw_html is enabled, superscripts, sub-
scripts, strikeouts and small capitals will be represented as HTML.
Otherwise, plain-text fallbacks will be used. Note that even if
raw_html is disabled, tables will be rendered with HTML syntax if they
cannot use pipe syntax.
Extension: markdown_in_html_blocks
Original Markdown allows you to include HTML “blocks”: blocks of HTML
between balanced tags that are separated from the surrounding text with
blank lines, and start and end at the left margin. Within these
blocks, everything is interpreted as HTML, not Markdown; so (for exam-
ple), * does not signify emphasis.
Pandoc behaves this way when the markdown_strict format is used; but by
default, pandoc interprets material between HTML block tags as Mark-
down. Thus, for example, pandoc will turn
<table>
<tr>
<td>*one*</td>
<td>[a link](https://google.com)</td>
</tr>
</table>
into
<table>
<tr>
<td><em>one</em></td>
<td><a href="https://google.com">a link</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
whereas Markdown.pl will preserve it as is.
There is one exception to this rule: text between <script>, <style>,
and <textarea> tags is not interpreted as Markdown.
This departure from original Markdown should make it easier to mix
Markdown with HTML block elements. For example, one can surround a
block of Markdown text with <div> tags without preventing it from being
interpreted as Markdown.
Extension: native_divs
Use native pandoc Div blocks for content inside <div> tags. For the
most part this should give the same output as markdown_in_html_blocks,
but it makes it easier to write pandoc filters to manipulate groups of
blocks.
Extension: native_spans
Use native pandoc Span blocks for content inside <span> tags. For the
most part this should give the same output as raw_html, but it makes it
easier to write pandoc filters to manipulate groups of inlines.
Extension: raw_tex
In addition to raw HTML, pandoc allows raw LaTeX, TeX, and ConTeXt to
be included in a document. Inline TeX commands will be preserved and
passed unchanged to the LaTeX and ConTeXt writers. Thus, for example,
you can use LaTeX to include BibTeX citations:
This result was proved in \cite{jones.1967}.
Note that in LaTeX environments, like
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}\hline
Age & Frequency \\ \hline
18--25 & 15 \\
26--35 & 33 \\
36--45 & 22 \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
the material between the begin and end tags will be interpreted as raw
LaTeX, not as Markdown.
For a more explicit and flexible way of including raw TeX in a Markdown
document, see the raw_attribute extension.
Inline LaTeX is ignored in output formats other than Markdown, LaTeX,
Emacs Org mode, and ConTeXt.
Generic raw attribute
Extension: raw_attribute
Inline spans and fenced code blocks with a special kind of attribute
will be parsed as raw content with the designated format. For example,
the following produces a raw roff ms block:
```{=ms}
.MYMACRO
blah blah
```
And the following produces a raw html inline element:
This is `<a>html</a>`{=html}
This can be useful to insert raw xml into docx documents, e.g. a page-
break:
```{=openxml}
<w:p>
<w:r>
<w:br w:type="page"/>
</w:r>
</w:p>
```
The format name should match the target format name (see -t/--to,
above, for a list, or use pandoc --list-output-formats). Use openxml
for docx output, opendocument for odt output, html5 for epub3 output,
html4 for epub2 output, and latex, beamer, ms, or html5 for pdf output
(depending on what you use for --pdf-engine).
This extension presupposes that the relevant kind of inline code or
fenced code block is enabled. Thus, for example, to use a raw attri-
bute with a backtick code block, backtick_code_blocks must be enabled.
The raw attribute cannot be combined with regular attributes.
LaTeX macros
Extension: latex_macros
When this extension is enabled, pandoc will parse LaTeX macro defini-
tions and apply the resulting macros to all LaTeX math and raw LaTeX.
So, for example, the following will work in all output formats, not
just LaTeX:
\newcommand{\tuple}[1]{\langle #1 \rangle}
$\tuple{a, b, c}$
Note that LaTeX macros will not be applied if they occur inside a raw
span or block marked with the raw_attribute extension.
When latex_macros is disabled, the raw LaTeX and math will not have
macros applied. This is usually a better approach when you are target-
ing LaTeX or PDF.
Macro definitions in LaTeX will be passed through as raw LaTeX only if
latex_macros is not enabled. Macro definitions in Markdown source (or
other formats allowing raw_tex) will be passed through regardless of
whether latex_macros is enabled.
Links
Markdown allows links to be specified in several ways.
Automatic links
If you enclose a URL or email address in pointy brackets, it will be-
come a link:
<https://google.com>
<sam@green.eggs.ham>
Inline links
An inline link consists of the link text in square brackets, followed
by the URL in parentheses. (Optionally, the URL can be followed by a
link title, in quotes.)
This is an [inline link](/url), and here's [one with
a title](https://fsf.org "click here for a good time!").
There can be no space between the bracketed part and the parenthesized
part. The link text can contain formatting (such as emphasis), but the
title cannot.
Email addresses in inline links are not autodetected, so they have to
be prefixed with mailto:
[Write me!](mailto:sam@green.eggs.ham)
Reference links
An explicit reference link has two parts, the link itself and the link
definition, which may occur elsewhere in the document (either before or
after the link).
The link consists of link text in square brackets, followed by a label
in square brackets. (There cannot be space between the two unless the
spaced_reference_links extension is enabled.) The link definition con-
sists of the bracketed label, followed by a colon and a space, followed
by the URL, and optionally (after a space) a link title either in
quotes or in parentheses. The label must not be parseable as a cita-
tion (assuming the citations extension is enabled): citations take
precedence over link labels.
Here are some examples:
[my label 1]: /foo/bar.html "My title, optional"
[my label 2]: /foo
[my label 3]: https://fsf.org (The free software foundation)
[my label 4]: /bar#special 'A title in single quotes'
The URL may optionally be surrounded by angle brackets:
[my label 5]: <http://foo.bar.baz>
The title may go on the next line:
[my label 3]: https://fsf.org
"The free software foundation"
Note that link labels are not case sensitive. So, this will work:
Here is [my link][FOO]
[Foo]: /bar/baz
In an implicit reference link, the second pair of brackets is empty:
See [my website][].
[my website]: http://foo.bar.baz
Note: In Markdown.pl and most other Markdown implementations, reference
link definitions cannot occur in nested constructions such as list
items or block quotes. Pandoc lifts this arbitrary seeming restric-
tion. So the following is fine in pandoc, though not in most other im-
plementations:
> My block [quote].
>
> [quote]: /foo
Extension: shortcut_reference_links
In a shortcut reference link, the second pair of brackets may be omit-
ted entirely:
See [my website].
[my website]: http://foo.bar.baz
Internal links
To link to another section of the same document, use the automatically
generated identifier (see Heading identifiers). For example:
See the [Introduction](#introduction).
or
See the [Introduction].
[Introduction]: #introduction
Internal links are currently supported for HTML formats (including HTML
slide shows and EPUB), LaTeX, and ConTeXt.
Images
A link immediately preceded by a ! will be treated as an image. The
link text will be used as the image’s alt text:
![movie reel]
[movie reel]: movie.gif
Extension: implicit_figures
An image with nonempty alt text, occurring by itself in a paragraph,
will be rendered as a figure with a caption. The image’s alt text will
be used as the caption.
How this is rendered depends on the output format. Some output formats
(e.g. RTF) do not yet support figures. In those formats, you’ll just
get an image in a paragraph by itself, with no caption.
If you just want a regular inline image, just make sure it is not the
only thing in the paragraph. One way to do this is to insert a non-
breaking space after the image:
\
Note that in reveal.js slide shows, an image in a paragraph by itself
that has the r-stretch class will fill the screen, and the caption and
figure tags will be omitted.
Extension: link_attributes
Attributes can be set on links and images:
An inline {#id .class width=30 height=20px}
and a reference ![image][ref] with attributes.
[ref]: foo.jpg "optional title" {#id .class key=val key2="val 2"}
(This syntax is compatible with PHP Markdown Extra when only #id and
.class are used.)
For HTML and EPUB, all known HTML5 attributes except width and height
(but including srcset and sizes) are passed through as is. Unknown at-
tributes are passed through as custom attributes, with data- prepended.
The other writers ignore attributes that are not specifically supported
by their output format.
The width and height attributes on images are treated specially. When
used without a unit, the unit is assumed to be pixels. However, any of
the following unit identifiers can be used: px, cm, mm, in, inch and %.
There must not be any spaces between the number and the unit. For ex-
ample:
{ width=50% }
• Dimensions may be converted to a form that is compatible with the
output format (for example, dimensions given in pixels will be con-
verted to inches when converting HTML to LaTeX). Conversion between
pixels and physical measurements is affected by the --dpi option (by
default, 96 dpi is assumed, unless the image itself contains dpi in-
formation).
• The % unit is generally relative to some available space. For exam-
ple the above example will render to the following.
• HTML: <img href="file.jpg" style="width: 50%;" />
• LaTeX: \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth,height=\text-
height]{file.jpg} (If you’re using a custom template, you need to
configure graphicx as in the default template.)
• ConTeXt: \externalfigure[file.jpg][width=0.5\textwidth]
• Some output formats have a notion of a class (ConTeXt) or a unique
identifier (LaTeX \caption), or both (HTML).
• When no width or height attributes are specified, the fallback is to
look at the image resolution and the dpi metadata embedded in the im-
age file.
Divs and Spans
Using the native_divs and native_spans extensions (see above), HTML
syntax can be used as part of markdown to create native Div and Span
elements in the pandoc AST (as opposed to raw HTML). However, there is
also nicer syntax available:
Extension: fenced_divs
Allow special fenced syntax for native Div blocks. A Div starts with a
fence containing at least three consecutive colons plus some at-
tributes. The attributes may optionally be followed by another string
of consecutive colons. The attribute syntax is exactly as in fenced
code blocks (see Extension: fenced_code_attributes). As with fenced
code blocks, one can use either attributes in curly braces or a single
unbraced word, which will be treated as a class name. The Div ends
with another line containing a string of at least three consecutive
colons. The fenced Div should be separated by blank lines from preced-
ing and following blocks.
Example:
::::: {#special .sidebar}
Here is a paragraph.
And another.
:::::
Fenced divs can be nested. Opening fences are distinguished because
they must have attributes:
::: Warning ::::::
This is a warning.
::: Danger
This is a warning within a warning.
:::
::::::::::::::::::
Fences without attributes are always closing fences. Unlike with
fenced code blocks, the number of colons in the closing fence need not
match the number in the opening fence. However, it can be helpful for
visual clarity to use fences of different lengths to distinguish nested
divs from their parents.
Extension: bracketed_spans
A bracketed sequence of inlines, as one would use to begin a link, will
be treated as a Span with attributes if it is followed immediately by
attributes:
[This is *some text*]{.class key="val"}
Footnotes
Extension: footnotes
Pandoc’s Markdown allows footnotes, using the following syntax:
Here is a footnote reference,[^1] and another.[^longnote]
[^1]: Here is the footnote.
[^longnote]: Here's one with multiple blocks.
Subsequent paragraphs are indented to show that they
belong to the previous footnote.
{ some.code }
The whole paragraph can be indented, or just the first
line. In this way, multi-paragraph footnotes work like
multi-paragraph list items.
This paragraph won't be part of the note, because it
isn't indented.
The identifiers in footnote references may not contain spaces, tabs, or
newlines. These identifiers are used only to correlate the footnote
reference with the note itself; in the output, footnotes will be num-
bered sequentially.
The footnotes themselves need not be placed at the end of the document.
They may appear anywhere except inside other block elements (lists,
block quotes, tables, etc.). Each footnote should be separated from
surrounding content (including other footnotes) by blank lines.
Extension: inline_notes
Inline footnotes are also allowed (though, unlike regular notes, they
cannot contain multiple paragraphs). The syntax is as follows:
Here is an inline note.^[Inlines notes are easier to write, since
you don't have to pick an identifier and move down to type the
note.]
Inline and regular footnotes may be mixed freely.
Citation syntax
Extension: citations
To cite a bibliographic item with an identifier foo, use the syntax
@foo. Normal citations should be included in square brackets, with
semicolons separating distinct items:
Blah blah [@doe99; @smith2000; @smith2004].
How this is rendered depends on the citation style. In an author-date
style, it might render as
Blah blah (Doe 1999, Smith 2000, 2004).
In a footnote style, it might render as
Blah blah.[^1]
[^1]: John Doe, "Frogs," *Journal of Amphibians* 44 (1999);
Susan Smith, "Flies," *Journal of Insects* (2000);
Susan Smith, "Bees," *Journal of Insects* (2004).
See the CSL user documentation for more information about CSL styles
and how they affect rendering.
Unless a citation key start with a letter, digit, or _, and contains
only alphanumerics and single internal punctuation characters
(:.#$%&-+?<>~/), it must be surrounded by curly braces, which are not
considered part of the key. In @Foo_bar.baz., the key is Foo_bar.baz
because the final period is not internal punctuation, so it is not in-
cluded in the key. In @{Foo_bar.baz.}, the key is Foo_bar.baz., in-
cluding the final period. In @Foo_bar--baz, the key is Foo_bar because
the repeated internal punctuation characters terminate the key. The
curly braces are recommended if you use URLs as keys: [@{https://exam-
ple.com/bib?name=foobar&date=2000}, p. 33].
Citation items may optionally include a prefix, a locator, and a suf-
fix. In
Blah blah [see @doe99, pp. 33-35 and *passim*; @smith04, chap. 1].
The first item (doe99) has prefix see, locator pp. 33-35, and suffix
and *passim*. The second item (smith04) has locator chap. 1 and no
prefix or suffix.
Pandoc uses some heuristics to separate the locator from the rest of
the subject. It is sensitive to the locator terms defined in the CSL
locale files. Either abbreviated or unabbreviated forms are accepted.
In the en-US locale, locator terms can be written in either singular or
plural forms, as book, bk./bks.; chapter, chap./chaps.; column,
col./cols.; figure, fig./figs.; folio, fol./fols.; number, no./nos.;
line, l./ll.; note, n./nn.; opus, op./opp.; page, p./pp.; paragraph,
para./paras.; part, pt./pts.; section, sec./secs.; sub verbo,
s.v./s.vv.; verse, v./vv.; volume, vol./vols.; ¶/¶¶; §/§§. If no loca-
tor term is used, “page” is assumed.
In complex cases, you can force something to be treated as a locator by
enclosing it in curly braces or prevent parsing the suffix as locator
by prepending curly braces:
[@smith{ii, A, D-Z}, with a suffix]
[@smith, {pp. iv, vi-xi, (xv)-(xvii)} with suffix here]
[@smith{}, 99 years later]
A minus sign (-) before the @ will suppress mention of the author in
the citation. This can be useful when the author is already mentioned
in the text:
Smith says blah [-@smith04].
You can also write an author-in-text citation, by omitting the square
brackets:
@smith04 says blah.
@smith04 [p. 33] says blah.
This will cause the author’s name to be rendered, followed by the bib-
liographical details. Use this form when you want to make the citation
the subject of a sentence.
When you are using a note style, it is usually better to let citeproc
create the footnotes from citations rather than writing an explicit
note. If you do write an explicit note that contains a citation, note
that normal citations will be put in parentheses, while author-in-text
citations will not. For this reason, it is sometimes preferable to use
the author-in-text style inside notes when using a note style.
Non-default extensions
The following Markdown syntax extensions are not enabled by default in
pandoc, but may be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name,
where EXTENSION is the name of the extension. Thus, for example, mark-
down+hard_line_breaks is Markdown with hard line breaks.
Extension: rebase_relative_paths
Rewrite relative paths for Markdown links and images, depending on the
path of the file containing the link or image link. For each link or
image, pandoc will compute the directory of the containing file, rela-
tive to the working directory, and prepend the resulting path to the
link or image path.
The use of this extension is best understood by example. Suppose you
have a a subdirectory for each chapter of a book, chap1, chap2, chap3.
Each contains a file text.md and a number of images used in the chap-
ter. You would like to have  in chap1/text.md re-
fer to chap1/spider.jpg and  in chap2/text.md refer
to chap2/spider.jpg. To do this, use
pandoc chap*/*.md -f markdown+rebase_relative_paths
Without this extension, you would have to use  in chap1/text.md and  in
chap2/text.md. Links with relative paths will be rewritten in the same
way as images.
Absolute paths and URLs are not changed. Neither are empty paths or
paths consisting entirely of a fragment, e.g., #foo.
Note that relative paths in reference links and images will be rewrit-
ten relative to the file containing the link reference definition, not
the file containing the reference link or image itself, if these dif-
fer.
Extension: attributes
Allows attributes to be attached to any inline or block-level element
when parsing commonmark. The syntax for the attributes is the same as
that used in header_attributes.
• Attributes that occur immediately after an inline element affect that
element. If they follow a space, then they belong to the space.
(Hence, this option subsumes inline_code_attributes and link_at-
tributes.)
• Attributes that occur immediately before a block element, on a line
by themselves, affect that element.
• Consecutive attribute specifiers may be used, either for blocks or
for inlines. Their attributes will be combined.
• Attributes that occur at the end of the text of a Setext or ATX head-
ing (separated by whitespace from the text) affect the heading ele-
ment. (Hence, this option subsumes header_attributes.)
• Attributes that occur after the opening fence in a fenced code block
affect the code block element. (Hence, this option subsumes
fenced_code_attributes.)
• Attributes that occur at the end of a reference link definition af-
fect links that refer to that definition.
Note that pandoc’s AST does not currently allow attributes to be at-
tached to arbitrary elements. Hence a Span or Div container will be
added if needed.
Extension: old_dashes
Selects the pandoc <= 1.8.2.1 behavior for parsing smart dashes: - be-
fore a numeral is an en-dash, and -- is an em-dash. This option only
has an effect if smart is enabled. It is selected automatically for
textile input.
Extension: angle_brackets_escapable
Allow < and > to be backslash-escaped, as they can be in GitHub fla-
vored Markdown but not original Markdown. This is implied by pandoc’s
default all_symbols_escapable.
Extension: lists_without_preceding_blankline
Allow a list to occur right after a paragraph, with no intervening
blank space.
Extension: four_space_rule
Selects the pandoc <= 2.0 behavior for parsing lists, so that four spa-
ces indent are needed for list item continuation paragraphs.
Extension: spaced_reference_links
Allow whitespace between the two components of a reference link, for
example,
[foo] [bar].
Extension: hard_line_breaks
Causes all newlines within a paragraph to be interpreted as hard line
breaks instead of spaces.
Extension: ignore_line_breaks
Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being
treated as spaces or as hard line breaks. This option is intended for
use with East Asian languages where spaces are not used between words,
but text is divided into lines for readability.
Extension: east_asian_line_breaks
Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being
treated as spaces or as hard line breaks, when they occur between two
East Asian wide characters. This is a better choice than ig-
nore_line_breaks for texts that include a mix of East Asian wide char-
acters and other characters.
Extension: emoji
Parses textual emojis like :smile: as Unicode emoticons.
Extension: tex_math_single_backslash
Causes anything between \( and \) to be interpreted as inline TeX math,
and anything between \[ and \] to be interpreted as display TeX math.
Note: a drawback of this extension is that it precludes escaping ( and
[.
Extension: tex_math_double_backslash
Causes anything between \\( and \\) to be interpreted as inline TeX
math, and anything between \\[ and \\] to be interpreted as display TeX
math.
Extension: markdown_attribute
By default, pandoc interprets material inside block-level tags as Mark-
down. This extension changes the behavior so that Markdown is only
parsed inside block-level tags if the tags have the attribute mark-
down=1.
Extension: mmd_title_block
Enables a MultiMarkdown style title block at the top of the document,
for example:
Title: My title
Author: John Doe
Date: September 1, 2008
Comment: This is a sample mmd title block, with
a field spanning multiple lines.
See the MultiMarkdown documentation for details. If pandoc_title_block
or yaml_metadata_block is enabled, it will take precedence over mmd_ti-
tle_block.
Extension: abbreviations
Parses PHP Markdown Extra abbreviation keys, like
*[HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language
Note that the pandoc document model does not support abbreviations, so
if this extension is enabled, abbreviation keys are simply skipped (as
opposed to being parsed as paragraphs).
Extension: autolink_bare_uris
Makes all absolute URIs into links, even when not surrounded by pointy
braces <...>.
Extension: mmd_link_attributes
Parses multimarkdown style key-value attributes on link and image ref-
erences. This extension should not be confused with the link_at-
tributes extension.
This is a reference ![image][ref] with multimarkdown attributes.
[ref]: https://path.to/image "Image title" width=20px height=30px
id=myId class="myClass1 myClass2"
Extension: mmd_header_identifiers
Parses multimarkdown style heading identifiers (in square brackets, af-
ter the heading but before any trailing #s in an ATX heading).
Extension: compact_definition_lists
Activates the definition list syntax of pandoc 1.12.x and earlier.
This syntax differs from the one described above under Definition lists
in several respects:
• No blank line is required between consecutive items of the definition
list.
• To get a “tight” or “compact” list, omit space between consecutive
items; the space between a term and its definition does not affect
anything.
• Lazy wrapping of paragraphs is not allowed: the entire definition
must be indented four spaces.
Extension: gutenberg
Use Project Gutenberg conventions for plain output: all-caps for strong
emphasis, surround by underscores for regular emphasis, add extra blank
space around headings.
Extension: sourcepos
Include source position attributes when parsing commonmark. For ele-
ments that accept attributes, a data-pos attribute is added; other ele-
ments are placed in a surrounding Div or Span element with a data-pos
attribute.
Extension: short_subsuperscripts
Parse multimarkdown style subscripts and superscripts, which start with
a `~' or `^' character, respectively, and include the alphanumeric se-
quence that follows. For example:
x^2 = 4
or
Oxygen is O~2.
Markdown variants
In addition to pandoc’s extended Markdown, the following Markdown vari-
ants are supported:
• markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)
• markdown_github (deprecated GitHub-Flavored Markdown)
• markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
• markdown_strict (Markdown.pl)
• commonmark (CommonMark)
• gfm (Github-Flavored Markdown)
• commonmark_x (CommonMark with many pandoc extensions)
To see which extensions are supported for a given format, and which are
enabled by default, you can use the command
pandoc --list-extensions=FORMAT
where FORMAT is replaced with the name of the format.
Note that the list of extensions for commonmark, gfm, and commonmark_x
are defined relative to default commonmark. So, for example, back-
tick_code_blocks does not appear as an extension, since it is enabled
by default and cannot be disabled.
CITATIONS
When the --citeproc option is used, pandoc can automatically generate
citations and a bibliography in a number of styles. Basic usage is
pandoc --citeproc myinput.txt
To use this feature, you will need to have
• a document containing citations (see Extension: citations);
• a source of bibliographic data: either an external bibliography file
or a list of references in the document’s YAML metadata
• optionally, a CSL citation style.
Specifying bibliographic data
You can specify an external bibliography using the bibliography metada-
ta field in a YAML metadata section or the --bibliography command line
argument. If you want to use multiple bibliography files, you can sup-
ply multiple --bibliography arguments or set bibliography metadata
field to YAML array. A bibliography may have any of these formats:
Format File extension
──────────────────────────
BibLaTeX .bib
BibTeX .bibtex
CSL JSON .json
CSL YAML .yaml
Note that .bib can be used with both BibTeX and BibLaTeX files; use the
extension .bibtex to force interpretation as BibTeX.
In BibTeX and BibLaTeX databases, pandoc parses LaTeX markup inside
fields such as title; in CSL YAML databases, pandoc Markdown; and in
CSL JSON databases, an HTML-like markup:
<i>...</i>
italics
<b>...</b>
bold
<span style="font-variant:small-caps;">...</span> or <sc>...</sc>
small capitals
<sub>...</sub>
subscript
<sup>...</sup>
superscript
<span class="nocase">...</span>
prevent a phrase from being capitalized as title case
As an alternative to specifying a bibliography file using --bibliogra-
phy or the YAML metadata field bibliography, you can include the cita-
tion data directly in the references field of the document’s YAML meta-
data. The field should contain an array of YAML-encoded references,
for example:
---
references:
- type: article-journal
id: WatsonCrick1953
author:
- family: Watson
given: J. D.
- family: Crick
given: F. H. C.
issued:
date-parts:
- - 1953
- 4
- 25
title: 'Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for
deoxyribose nucleic acid'
title-short: Molecular structure of nucleic acids
container-title: Nature
volume: 171
issue: 4356
page: 737-738
DOI: 10.1038/171737a0
URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/171737a0
language: en-GB
...
If both an external bibliography and inline (YAML metadata) references
are provided, both will be used. In case of conflicting ids, the in-
line references will take precedence.
Note that pandoc can be used to produce such a YAML metadata section
from a BibTeX, BibLaTeX, or CSL JSON bibliography:
pandoc chem.bib -s -f biblatex -t markdown
pandoc chem.json -s -f csljson -t markdown
Indeed, pandoc can convert between any of these citation formats:
pandoc chem.bib -s -f biblatex -t csljson
pandoc chem.yaml -s -f markdown -t biblatex
Running pandoc on a bibliography file with the --citeproc option will
create a formatted bibliography in the format of your choice:
pandoc chem.bib -s --citeproc -o chem.html
pandoc chem.bib -s --citeproc -o chem.pdf
Capitalization in titles
If you are using a bibtex or biblatex bibliography, then observe the
following rules:
• English titles should be in title case. Non-English titles should be
in sentence case, and the langid field in biblatex should be set to
the relevant language. (The following values are treated as English:
american, british, canadian, english, australian, newzealand, USen-
glish, or UKenglish.)
• As is standard with bibtex/biblatex, proper names should be protected
with curly braces so that they won’t be lowercased in styles that
call for sentence case. For example:
title = {My Dinner with {Andre}}
• In addition, words that should remain lowercase (or camelCase) should
be protected:
title = {Spin Wave Dispersion on the {nm} Scale}
Though this is not necessary in bibtex/biblatex, it is necessary with
citeproc, which stores titles internally in sentence case, and con-
verts to title case in styles that require it. Here we protect “nm”
so that it doesn’t get converted to “Nm” at this stage.
If you are using a CSL bibliography (either JSON or YAML), then observe
the following rules:
• All titles should be in sentence case.
• Use the language field for non-English titles to prevent their con-
version to title case in styles that call for this. (Conversion hap-
pens only if language begins with en or is left empty.)
• Protect words that should not be converted to title case using this
syntax:
Spin wave dispersion on the <span class="nocase">nm</span> scale
Conference Papers, Published vs. Unpublished
For a formally published conference paper, use the biblatex entry type
inproceedings (which will be mapped to CSL paper-conference).
For an unpublished manuscript, use the biblatex entry type unpublished
without an eventtitle field (this entry type will be mapped to CSL man-
uscript).
For a talk, an unpublished conference paper, or a poster presentation,
use the biblatex entry type unpublished with an eventtitle field (this
entry type will be mapped to CSL speech). Use the biblatex type field
to indicate the type, e.g. “Paper”, or “Poster”. venue and eventdate
may be useful too, though eventdate will not be rendered by most CSL
styles. Note that venue is for the event’s venue, unlike location
which describes the publisher’s location; do not use the latter for an
unpublished conference paper.
Specifying a citation style
Citations and references can be formatted using any style supported by
the Citation Style Language, listed in the Zotero Style Repository.
These files are specified using the --csl option or the csl (or cita-
tion-style) metadata field. By default, pandoc will use the Chicago
Manual of Style author-date format. (You can override this default by
copying a CSL style of your choice to default.csl in your user data di-
rectory.) The CSL project provides further information on finding and
editing styles.
The --citation-abbreviations option (or the citation-abbreviations
metadata field) may be used to specify a JSON file containing abbrevia-
tions of journals that should be used in formatted bibliographies when
form="short" is specified. The format of the file can be illustrated
with an example:
{ "default": {
"container-title": {
"Lloyd's Law Reports": "Lloyd's Rep",
"Estates Gazette": "EG",
"Scots Law Times": "SLT"
}
}
}
Citations in note styles
Pandoc’s citation processing is designed to allow you to move between
author-date, numerical, and note styles without modifying the markdown
source. When you’re using a note style, avoid inserting footnotes man-
ually. Instead, insert citations just as you would in an author-date
style—for example,
Blah blah [@foo, p. 33].
The footnote will be created automatically. Pandoc will take care of
removing the space and moving the note before or after the period, de-
pending on the setting of notes-after-punctuation, as described below
in Other relevant metadata fields.
In some cases you may need to put a citation inside a regular footnote.
Normal citations in footnotes (such as [@foo, p. 33]) will be rendered
in parentheses. In-text citations (such as @foo [p. 33]) will be ren-
dered without parentheses. (A comma will be added if appropriate.)
Thus:
[^1]: Some studies [@foo; @bar, p. 33] show that
frubulicious zoosnaps are quantical. For a survey
of the literature, see @baz [chap. 1].
Raw content in a style
To include raw content in a prefix, suffix, delimiter, or term, sur-
round it with these tags indicating the format:
{{jats}}<ref>{{/jats}}
Without the tags, the string will be interpreted as a string and es-
caped in the output, rather than being passed through raw.
This feature allows stylesheets to be customized to give different out-
put for different output formats. However, stylesheets customized in
this way will not be usable by other CSL implementations.
Placement of the bibliography
If the style calls for a list of works cited, it will be placed in a
div with id refs, if one exists:
::: {#refs}
:::
Otherwise, it will be placed at the end of the document. Generation of
the bibliography can be suppressed by setting suppress-bibliography:
true in the YAML metadata.
If you wish the bibliography to have a section heading, you can set
reference-section-title in the metadata, or put the heading at the be-
ginning of the div with id refs (if you are using it) or at the end of
your document:
last paragraph...
# References
The bibliography will be inserted after this heading. Note that the
unnumbered class will be added to this heading, so that the section
will not be numbered.
Including uncited items in the bibliography
If you want to include items in the bibliography without actually cit-
ing them in the body text, you can define a dummy nocite metadata field
and put the citations there:
---
nocite: |
@item1, @item2
...
@item3
In this example, the document will contain a citation for item3 only,
but the bibliography will contain entries for item1, item2, and item3.
It is possible to create a bibliography with all the citations, whether
or not they appear in the document, by using a wildcard:
---
nocite: |
@*
...
For LaTeX output, you can also use natbib or biblatex to render the
bibliography. In order to do so, specify bibliography files as out-
lined above, and add --natbib or --biblatex argument to pandoc invoca-
tion. Bear in mind that bibliography files have to be in either BibTeX
(for --natbib) or BibLaTeX (for --biblatex) format.
Other relevant metadata fields
A few other metadata fields affect bibliography formatting:
link-citations
If true, citations will be hyperlinked to the corresponding bib-
liography entries (for author-date and numerical styles only).
Defaults to false.
link-bibliography
If true, DOIs, PMCIDs, PMID, and URLs in bibliographies will be
rendered as hyperlinks. (If an entry contains a DOI, PMCID,
PMID, or URL, but none of these fields are rendered by the
style, then the title, or in the absence of a title the whole
entry, will be hyperlinked.) Defaults to true.
lang The lang field will affect how the style is localized, for exam-
ple in the translation of labels, the use of quotation marks,
and the way items are sorted. (For backwards compatibility, lo-
cale may be used instead of lang, but this use is deprecated.)
A BCP 47 language tag is expected: for example, en, de, en-US,
fr-CA, ug-Cyrl. The unicode extension syntax (after -u-) may be
used to specify options for collation (sorting) more precisely.
Here are some examples:
• zh-u-co-pinyin – Chinese with the Pinyin collation.
• es-u-co-trad – Spanish with the traditional collation (with Ch
sorting after C).
• fr-u-kb – French with “backwards” accent sorting (with coté
sorting after côte).
• en-US-u-kf-upper – English with uppercase letters sorting be-
fore lower (default is lower before upper).
notes-after-punctuation
If true (the default for note styles), pandoc will put footnote
references or superscripted numerical citations after following
punctuation. For example, if the source contains blah blah
[@jones99]., the result will look like blah blah.[^1], with the
note moved after the period and the space collapsed. If false,
the space will still be collapsed, but the footnote will not be
moved after the punctuation. The option may also be used in nu-
merical styles that use superscripts for citation numbers (but
for these styles the default is not to move the citation).
SLIDE SHOWS
You can use pandoc to produce an HTML + JavaScript slide presentation
that can be viewed via a web browser. There are five ways to do this,
using S5, DZSlides, Slidy, Slideous, or reveal.js. You can also pro-
duce a PDF slide show using LaTeX beamer, or slides shows in Microsoft
PowerPoint format.
Here’s the Markdown source for a simple slide show, habits.txt:
% Habits
% John Doe
% March 22, 2005
# In the morning
## Getting up
- Turn off alarm
- Get out of bed
## Breakfast
- Eat eggs
- Drink coffee
# In the evening
## Dinner
- Eat spaghetti
- Drink wine
------------------
## Going to sleep
- Get in bed
- Count sheep
To produce an HTML/JavaScript slide show, simply type
pandoc -t FORMAT -s habits.txt -o habits.html
where FORMAT is either s5, slidy, slideous, dzslides, or revealjs.
For Slidy, Slideous, reveal.js, and S5, the file produced by pandoc
with the -s/--standalone option embeds a link to JavaScript and CSS
files, which are assumed to be available at the relative path s5/de-
fault (for S5), slideous (for Slideous), reveal.js (for reveal.js), or
at the Slidy website at w3.org (for Slidy). (These paths can be
changed by setting the slidy-url, slideous-url, revealjs-url, or s5-url
variables; see Variables for HTML slides, above.) For DZSlides, the
(relatively short) JavaScript and CSS are included in the file by de-
fault.
With all HTML slide formats, the --self-contained option can be used to
produce a single file that contains all of the data necessary to dis-
play the slide show, including linked scripts, stylesheets, images, and
videos.
To produce a PDF slide show using beamer, type
pandoc -t beamer habits.txt -o habits.pdf
Note that a reveal.js slide show can also be converted to a PDF by
printing it to a file from the browser.
To produce a Powerpoint slide show, type
pandoc habits.txt -o habits.pptx
Structuring the slide show
By default, the slide level is the highest heading level in the hierar-
chy that is followed immediately by content, and not another heading,
somewhere in the document. In the example above, level-1 headings are
always followed by level-2 headings, which are followed by content, so
the slide level is 2. This default can be overridden using the
--slide-level option.
The document is carved up into slides according to the following rules:
• A horizontal rule always starts a new slide.
• A heading at the slide level always starts a new slide.
• Headings below the slide level in the hierarchy create headings with-
in a slide. (In beamer, a “block” will be created. If the heading
has the class example, an exampleblock environment will be used; if
it has the class alert, an alertblock will be used; otherwise a regu-
lar block will be used.)
• Headings above the slide level in the hierarchy create “title
slides,” which just contain the section title and help to break the
slide show into sections. Non-slide content under these headings
will be included on the title slide (for HTML slide shows) or in a
subsequent slide with the same title (for beamer).
• A title page is constructed automatically from the document’s title
block, if present. (In the case of beamer, this can be disabled by
commenting out some lines in the default template.)
These rules are designed to support many different styles of slide
show. If you don’t care about structuring your slides into sections
and subsections, you can either just use level-1 headings for all
slides (in that case, level 1 will be the slide level) or you can set
--slide-level=0.
Note: in reveal.js slide shows, if slide level is 2, a two-dimensional
layout will be produced, with level-1 headings building horizontally
and level-2 headings building vertically. It is not recommended that
you use deeper nesting of section levels with reveal.js unless you set
--slide-level=0 (which lets reveal.js produce a one-dimensional layout
and only interprets horizontal rules as slide boundaries).
PowerPoint layout choice
When creating slides, the pptx writer chooses from a number of pre-de-
fined layouts, based on the content of the slide:
Title Slide
This layout is used for the initial slide, which is generated
and filled from the metadata fields date, author, and title, if
they are present.
Section Header
This layout is used for what pandoc calls “title slides”, i.e.
slides which start with a header which is above the slide level
in the hierarchy.
Two Content
This layout is used for two-column slides, i.e. slides contain-
ing a div with class columns which contains at least two divs
with class column.
Comparison
This layout is used instead of “Two Content” for any two-column
slides in which at least one column contains text followed by
non-text (e.g. an image or a table).
Content with Caption
This layout is used for any non-two-column slides which contain
text followed by non-text (e.g. an image or a table).
Blank This layout is used for any slides which only contain blank con-
tent, e.g. a slide containing only speaker notes, or a slide
containing only a non-breaking space.
Title and Content
This layout is used for all slides which do not match the crite-
ria for another layout.
These layouts are chosen from the default pptx reference doc included
with pandoc, unless an alternative reference doc is specified using
--reference-doc.
Incremental lists
By default, these writers produce lists that display “all at once.” If
you want your lists to display incrementally (one item at a time), use
the -i option. If you want a particular list to depart from the de-
fault, put it in a div block with class incremental or nonincremental.
So, for example, using the fenced div syntax, the following would be
incremental regardless of the document default:
::: incremental
- Eat spaghetti
- Drink wine
:::
or
::: nonincremental
- Eat spaghetti
- Drink wine
:::
While using incremental and nonincremental divs are the recommended
method of setting incremental lists on a per-case basis, an older meth-
od is also supported: putting lists inside a blockquote will depart
from the document default (that is, it will display incrementally with-
out the -i option and all at once with the -i option):
> - Eat spaghetti
> - Drink wine
Both methods allow incremental and nonincremental lists to be mixed in
a single document.
Inserting pauses
You can add “pauses” within a slide by including a paragraph containing
three dots, separated by spaces:
# Slide with a pause
content before the pause
. . .
content after the pause
Note: this feature is not yet implemented for PowerPoint output.
Styling the slides
You can change the style of HTML slides by putting customized CSS files
in $DATADIR/s5/default (for S5), $DATADIR/slidy (for Slidy), or
$DATADIR/slideous (for Slideous), where $DATADIR is the user data di-
rectory (see --data-dir, above). The originals may be found in pan-
doc’s system data directory (generally $CABALDIR/pandoc-VERSION/s5/de-
fault). Pandoc will look there for any files it does not find in the
user data directory.
For dzslides, the CSS is included in the HTML file itself, and may be
modified there.
All reveal.js configuration options can be set through variables. For
example, themes can be used by setting the theme variable:
-V theme=moon
Or you can specify a custom stylesheet using the --css option.
To style beamer slides, you can specify a theme, colortheme, fonttheme,
innertheme, and outertheme, using the -V option:
pandoc -t beamer habits.txt -V theme:Warsaw -o habits.pdf
Note that heading attributes will turn into slide attributes (on a
<div> or <section>) in HTML slide formats, allowing you to style indi-
vidual slides. In beamer, a number of heading classes and attributes
are recognized as frame options and will be passed through as options
to the frame: see Frame attributes in beamer, below.
Speaker notes
Speaker notes are supported in reveal.js, PowerPoint (pptx), and beamer
output. You can add notes to your Markdown document thus:
::: notes
This is my note.
- It can contain Markdown
- like this list
:::
To show the notes window in reveal.js, press s while viewing the pre-
sentation. Speaker notes in PowerPoint will be available, as usual, in
handouts and presenter view.
Notes are not yet supported for other slide formats, but the notes will
not appear on the slides themselves.
Columns
To put material in side by side columns, you can use a native div con-
tainer with class columns, containing two or more div containers with
class column and a width attribute:
:::::::::::::: {.columns}
::: {.column width="40%"}
contents...
:::
::: {.column width="60%"}
contents...
:::
::::::::::::::
Additional columns attributes in beamer
The div containers with classes columns and column can optionally have
an align attribute. The class columns can optionally have a totalwidth
attribute or an onlytextwidth class.
:::::::::::::: {.columns align=center totalwidth=8em}
::: {.column width="40%"}
contents...
:::
::: {.column width="60%" align=bottom}
contents...
:::
::::::::::::::
The align attributes on columns and column can be used with the values
top, top-baseline, center and bottom to vertically align the columns.
It defaults to top in columns.
The totalwidth attribute limits the width of the columns to the given
value.
:::::::::::::: {.columns align=top .onlytextwidth}
::: {.column width="40%" align=center}
contents...
:::
::: {.column width="60%"}
contents...
:::
::::::::::::::
The class onlytextwidth sets the totalwidth to \textwidth.
See Section 12.7 of the Beamer User’s Guide for more details.
Frame attributes in beamer
Sometimes it is necessary to add the LaTeX [fragile] option to a frame
in beamer (for example, when using the minted environment). This can
be forced by adding the fragile class to the heading introducing the
slide:
# Fragile slide {.fragile}
All of the other frame attributes described in Section 8.1 of the Beam-
er User’s Guide may also be used: allowdisplaybreaks, allowframebreaks,
b, c, s, t, environment, label, plain, shrink, standout, noframenumber-
ing, squeeze. allowframebreaks is recommended especially for bibli-
ographies, as it allows multiple slides to be created if the content
overfills the frame:
# References {.allowframebreaks}
In addition, the frameoptions attribute may be used to pass arbitrary
frame options to a beamer slide:
# Heading {frameoptions="squeeze,shrink,customoption=foobar"}
Background in reveal.js, beamer, and pptx
Background images can be added to self-contained reveal.js slide shows,
beamer slide shows, and pptx slide shows.
On all slides (beamer, reveal.js, pptx)
With beamer and reveal.js, the configuration option background-image
can be used either in the YAML metadata block or as a command-line
variable to get the same image on every slide.
For pptx, you can use a reference doc in which background images have
been set on the relevant layouts.
parallaxBackgroundImage (reveal.js)
For reveal.js, there is also the reveal.js-native option parallaxBack-
groundImage, which can be used instead of background-image to produce a
parallax scrolling background. You must also set parallaxBackground-
Size, and can optionally set parallaxBackgroundHorizontal and paral-
laxBackgroundVertical to configure the scrolling behaviour. See the
reveal.js documentation for more details about the meaning of these op-
tions.
In reveal.js’s overview mode, the parallaxBackgroundImage will show up
only on the first slide.
On individual slides (reveal.js, pptx)
To set an image for a particular reveal.js or pptx slide, add {back-
ground-image="/path/to/image"} to the first slide-level heading on the
slide (which may even be empty).
As the HTML writers pass unknown attributes through, other reveal.js
background settings also work on individual slides, including back-
ground-size, background-repeat, background-color, transition, and tran-
sition-speed. (The data- prefix will automatically be added.)
Note: data-background-image is also supported in pptx for consistency
with reveal.js – if background-image isn’t found, data-background-image
will be checked.
On the title slide (reveal.js, pptx)
To add a background image to the automatically generated title slide
for reveal.js, use the title-slide-attributes variable in the YAML
metadata block. It must contain a map of attribute names and values.
(Note that the data- prefix is required here, as it isn’t added auto-
matically.)
For pptx, pass a reference doc with the background image set on the
“Title Slide” layout.
Example (reveal.js)
---
title: My Slide Show
parallaxBackgroundImage: /path/to/my/background_image.png
title-slide-attributes:
data-background-image: /path/to/title_image.png
data-background-size: contain
---
## Slide One
Slide 1 has background_image.png as its background.
## {background-image="/path/to/special_image.jpg"}
Slide 2 has a special image for its background, even though the heading has no content.
EPUBS
EPUB Metadata
EPUB metadata may be specified using the --epub-metadata option, but if
the source document is Markdown, it is better to use a YAML metadata
block. Here is an example:
---
title:
- type: main
text: My Book
- type: subtitle
text: An investigation of metadata
creator:
- role: author
text: John Smith
- role: editor
text: Sarah Jones
identifier:
- scheme: DOI
text: doi:10.234234.234/33
publisher: My Press
rights: © 2007 John Smith, CC BY-NC
ibooks:
version: 1.3.4
...
The following fields are recognized:
identifier
Either a string value or an object with fields text and scheme.
Valid values for scheme are ISBN-10, GTIN-13, UPC, ISMN-10, DOI,
LCCN, GTIN-14, ISBN-13, Legal deposit number, URN, OCLC,
ISMN-13, ISBN-A, JP, OLCC.
title Either a string value, or an object with fields file-as and
type, or a list of such objects. Valid values for type are
main, subtitle, short, collection, edition, extended.
creator
Either a string value, or an object with fields role, file-as,
and text, or a list of such objects. Valid values for role are
MARC relators, but pandoc will attempt to translate the human-
readable versions (like “author” and “editor”) to the appropri-
ate marc relators.
contributor
Same format as creator.
date A string value in YYYY-MM-DD format. (Only the year is neces-
sary.) Pandoc will attempt to convert other common date for-
mats.
lang (or legacy: language)
A string value in BCP 47 format. Pandoc will default to the lo-
cal language if nothing is specified.
subject
Either a string value, or an object with fields text, authority,
and term, or a list of such objects. Valid values for authority
are either a reserved authority value (currently AAT, BIC,
BISAC, CLC, DDC, CLIL, EuroVoc, MEDTOP, LCSH, NDC, Thema, UDC,
and WGS) or an absolute IRI identifying a custom scheme. Valid
values for term are defined by the scheme.
description
A string value.
type A string value.
format A string value.
relation
A string value.
coverage
A string value.
rights A string value.
belongs-to-collection
A string value. identifies the name of a collection to which
the EPUB Publication belongs.
group-position
The group-position field indicates the numeric position in which
the EPUB Publication belongs relative to other works belonging
to the same belongs-to-collection field.
cover-image
A string value (path to cover image).
css (or legacy: stylesheet)
A string value (path to CSS stylesheet).
page-progression-direction
Either ltr or rtl. Specifies the page-progression-direction at-
tribute for the spine element.
ibooks iBooks-specific metadata, with the following fields:
• version: (string)
• specified-fonts: true|false (default false)
• ipad-orientation-lock: portrait-only|landscape-only
• iphone-orientation-lock: portrait-only|landscape-only
• binding: true|false (default true)
• scroll-axis: vertical|horizontal|default
The epub:type attribute
For epub3 output, you can mark up the heading that corresponds to an
EPUB chapter using the epub:type attribute. For example, to set the
attribute to the value prologue, use this markdown:
# My chapter {epub:type=prologue}
Which will result in:
<body epub:type="frontmatter">
<section epub:type="prologue">
<h1>My chapter</h1>
Pandoc will output <body epub:type="bodymatter">, unless you use one of
the following values, in which case either frontmatter or backmatter
will be output.
epub:type of first section epub:type of body
───────────────────────────────────────────────
prologue frontmatter
abstract frontmatter
acknowledgments frontmatter
copyright-page frontmatter
dedication frontmatter
credits frontmatter
keywords frontmatter
imprint frontmatter
contributors frontmatter
other-credits frontmatter
errata frontmatter
revision-history frontmatter
titlepage frontmatter
halftitlepage frontmatter
seriespage frontmatter
foreword frontmatter
preface frontmatter
frontispiece frontmatter
appendix backmatter
colophon backmatter
bibliography backmatter
index backmatter
Linked media
By default, pandoc will download media referenced from any <img>, <au-
dio>, <video> or <source> element present in the generated EPUB, and
include it in the EPUB container, yielding a completely self-contained
EPUB. If you want to link to external media resources instead, use raw
HTML in your source and add data-external="1" to the tag with the src
attribute. For example:
<audio controls="1">
<source src="https://example.com/music/toccata.mp3"
data-external="1" type="audio/mpeg">
</source>
</audio>
If the input format already is HTML then data-external="1" will work as
expected for <img> elements. Similarly, for Markdown, external images
can be declared with {external=1}. Note that this only
works for images; the other media elements have no native representa-
tion in pandoc’s AST and requires the use of raw HTML.
EPUB styling
By default, pandoc will include some basic styling contained in its
epub.css data file. (To see this, use pandoc --print-default-data-file
epub.css.) To use a different CSS file, just use the --css command
line option. A few inline styles are defined in addition; these are
essential for correct formatting of pandoc’s HTML output.
The document-css variable may be set if the more opinionated styling of
pandoc’s default HTML templates is desired (and in that case the vari-
ables defined in Variables for HTML may be used to fine-tune the
style).
JUPYTER NOTEBOOKS
When creating a Jupyter notebook, pandoc will try to infer the notebook
structure. Code blocks with the class code will be taken as code
cells, and intervening content will be taken as Markdown cells. At-
tachments will automatically be created for images in Markdown cells.
Metadata will be taken from the jupyter metadata field. For example:
---
title: My notebook
jupyter:
nbformat: 4
nbformat_minor: 5
kernelspec:
display_name: Python 2
language: python
name: python2
language_info:
codemirror_mode:
name: ipython
version: 2
file_extension: ".py"
mimetype: "text/x-python"
name: "python"
nbconvert_exporter: "python"
pygments_lexer: "ipython2"
version: "2.7.15"
---
# Lorem ipsum
**Lorem ipsum** dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc luctus
bibendum felis dictum sodales.
``` code
print("hello")
```
## Pyout
``` code
from IPython.display import HTML
HTML("""
<script>
console.log("hello");
</script>
<b>HTML</b>
""")
```
## Image
This image  will be
included as a cell attachment.
If you want to add cell attributes, group cells differently, or add
output to code cells, then you need to include divs to indicate the
structure. You can use either fenced divs or native divs for this.
Here is an example:
:::::: {.cell .markdown}
# Lorem
**Lorem ipsum** dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc luctus
bibendum felis dictum sodales.
::::::
:::::: {.cell .code execution_count=1}
``` {.python}
print("hello")
```
::: {.output .stream .stdout}
```
hello
```
:::
::::::
:::::: {.cell .code execution_count=2}
``` {.python}
from IPython.display import HTML
HTML("""
<script>
console.log("hello");
</script>
<b>HTML</b>
""")
```
::: {.output .execute_result execution_count=2}
```{=html}
<script>
console.log("hello");
</script>
<b>HTML</b>
hello
```
:::
::::::
If you include raw HTML or TeX in an output cell, use the [raw attri-
bute][Extension: fenced_attribute], as shown in the last cell of the
example above. Although pandoc can process “bare” raw HTML and TeX,
the result is often interspersed raw elements and normal textual ele-
ments, and in an output cell pandoc expects a single, connected raw
block. To avoid using raw HTML or TeX except when marked explicitly
using raw attributes, we recommend specifying the extensions -raw_html-
raw_tex+raw_attribute when translating between Markdown and ipynb note-
books.
Note that options and extensions that affect reading and writing of
Markdown will also affect Markdown cells in ipynb notebooks. For exam-
ple, --wrap=preserve will preserve soft line breaks in Markdown cells;
--atx-headers will cause ATX-style headings to be used; and --preserve-
tabs will prevent tabs from being turned to spaces.
SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
Pandoc will automatically highlight syntax in fenced code blocks that
are marked with a language name. The Haskell library skylighting is
used for highlighting. Currently highlighting is supported only for
HTML, EPUB, Docx, Ms, and LaTeX/PDF output. To see a list of language
names that pandoc will recognize, type pandoc --list-highlight-lan-
guages.
The color scheme can be selected using the --highlight-style option.
The default color scheme is pygments, which imitates the default color
scheme used by the Python library pygments (though pygments is not ac-
tually used to do the highlighting). To see a list of highlight
styles, type pandoc --list-highlight-styles.
If you are not satisfied with the predefined styles, you can use
--print-highlight-style to generate a JSON .theme file which can be
modified and used as the argument to --highlight-style. To get a JSON
version of the pygments style, for example:
pandoc --print-highlight-style pygments > my.theme
Then edit my.theme and use it like this:
pandoc --highlight-style my.theme
If you are not satisfied with the built-in highlighting, or you want
highlight a language that isn’t supported, you can use the --syntax-
definition option to load a KDE-style XML syntax definition file. Be-
fore writing your own, have a look at KDE’s repository of syntax defi-
nitions.
To disable highlighting, use the --no-highlight option.
CUSTOM STYLES
Custom styles can be used in the docx and ICML formats.
Output
By default, pandoc’s docx and ICML output applies a predefined set of
styles for blocks such as paragraphs and block quotes, and uses largely
default formatting (italics, bold) for inlines. This will work for
most purposes, especially alongside a reference.docx file. However, if
you need to apply your own styles to blocks, or match a preexisting set
of styles, pandoc allows you to define custom styles for blocks and
text using divs and spans, respectively.
If you define a div or span with the attribute custom-style, pandoc
will apply your specified style to the contained elements (with the ex-
ception of elements whose function depends on a style, like headings,
code blocks, block quotes, or links). So, for example, using the
bracketed_spans syntax,
[Get out]{custom-style="Emphatically"}, he said.
would produce a docx file with “Get out” styled with character style
Emphatically. Similarly, using the fenced_divs syntax,
Dickinson starts the poem simply:
::: {custom-style="Poetry"}
| A Bird came down the Walk---
| He did not know I saw---
:::
would style the two contained lines with the Poetry paragraph style.
For docx output, styles will be defined in the output file as inherit-
ing from normal text, if the styles are not yet in your reference.docx.
If they are already defined, pandoc will not alter the definition.
This feature allows for greatest customization in conjunction with pan-
doc filters. If you want all paragraphs after block quotes to be in-
dented, you can write a filter to apply the styles necessary. If you
want all italics to be transformed to the Emphasis character style
(perhaps to change their color), you can write a filter which will
transform all italicized inlines to inlines within an Emphasis custom-
style span.
For docx output, you don’t need to enable any extensions for custom
styles to work.
Input
The docx reader, by default, only reads those styles that it can con-
vert into pandoc elements, either by direct conversion or interpreting
the derivation of the input document’s styles.
By enabling the styles extension in the docx reader (-f docx+styles),
you can produce output that maintains the styles of the input document,
using the custom-style class. Paragraph styles are interpreted as di-
vs, while character styles are interpreted as spans.
For example, using the custom-style-reference.docx file in the test di-
rectory, we have the following different outputs:
Without the +styles extension:
$ pandoc test/docx/custom-style-reference.docx -f docx -t markdown
This is some text.
This is text with an *emphasized* text style. And this is text with a
**strengthened** text style.
> Here is a styled paragraph that inherits from Block Text.
And with the extension:
$ pandoc test/docx/custom-style-reference.docx -f docx+styles -t markdown
::: {custom-style="First Paragraph"}
This is some text.
:::
::: {custom-style="Body Text"}
This is text with an [emphasized]{custom-style="Emphatic"} text style.
And this is text with a [strengthened]{custom-style="Strengthened"}
text style.
:::
::: {custom-style="My Block Style"}
> Here is a styled paragraph that inherits from Block Text.
:::
With these custom styles, you can use your input document as a refer-
ence-doc while creating docx output (see below), and maintain the same
styles in your input and output files.
CUSTOM READERS AND WRITERS
Pandoc can be extended with custom readers and writers written in Lua.
(Pandoc includes a Lua interpreter, so Lua need not be installed sepa-
rately.)
To use a custom reader or writer, simply specify the path to the Lua
script in place of the input or output format. For example:
pandoc -t data/sample.lua
pandoc -f my_custom_markup_language.lua -t latex -s
A custom reader is a Lua script that defines one function, Reader,
which takes a string as input and returns a Pandoc AST. See the Lua
filters documentation for documentation of the functions that are
available for creating pandoc AST elements. For parsing, the lpeg
parsing library is available by default. To see a sample custom read-
er:
pandoc --print-default-data-file creole.lua
If you want your custom reader to have access to reader options
(e.g. the tab stop setting), you give your Reader function a second op-
tions parameter.
A custom writer is a Lua script that defines a function that specifies
how to render each element in a Pandoc AST. To see a documented exam-
ple which you can modify according to your needs:
pandoc --print-default-data-file sample.lua
Note that custom writers have no default template. If you want to use
--standalone with a custom writer, you will need to specify a template
manually using --template or add a new default template with the name
default.NAME_OF_CUSTOM_WRITER.lua to the templates subdirectory of your
user data directory (see Templates).
REPRODUCIBLE BUILDS
Some of the document formats pandoc targets (such as EPUB, docx, and
ODT) include build timestamps in the generated document. That means
that the files generated on successive builds will differ, even if the
source does not. To avoid this, set the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment
variable, and the timestamp will be taken from it instead of the cur-
rent time. SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH should contain an integer unix timestamp
(specifying the number of second since midnight UTC January 1, 1970).
Some document formats also include a unique identifier. For EPUB, this
can be set explicitly by setting the identifier metadata field (see
EPUB Metadata, above).
A NOTE ON SECURITY
If you use pandoc to convert user-contributed content in a web applica-
tion, here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Although pandoc itself will not create or modify any files other
than those you explicitly ask it create (with the exception of tem-
porary files used in producing PDFs), a filter or custom writer
could in principle do anything on your file system. Please audit
filters and custom writers very carefully before using them.
2. Several input formats (including HTML, Org, and RST) support include
directives that allow the contents of a file to be included in the
output. An untrusted attacker could use these to view the contents
of files on the file system. (Using the --sandbox option can pro-
tect against this threat.)
3. Several output formats (including RTF, FB2, HTML with --self-con-
tained, EPUB, Docx, and ODT) will embed encoded or raw images into
the output file. An untrusted attacker could exploit this to view
the contents of non-image files on the file system. (Using the
--sandbox option can protect against this threat, but will also pre-
vent including images in these formats.)
4. If your application uses pandoc as a Haskell library (rather than
shelling out to the executable), it is possible to use it in a mode
that fully isolates pandoc from your file system, by running the
pandoc operations in the PandocPure monad. See the document Using
the pandoc API for more details.
5. Pandoc’s parsers can exhibit pathological performance on some corner
cases. It is wise to put any pandoc operations under a timeout, to
avoid DOS attacks that exploit these issues. If you are using the
pandoc executable, you can add the command line options +RTS -M512M
-RTS (for example) to limit the heap size to 512MB. Note that the
commonmark parser (including commonmark_x and gfm) is much less vul-
nerable to pathological performance than the markdown parser, so it
is a better choice when processing untrusted input.
6. The HTML generated by pandoc is not guaranteed to be safe. If
raw_html is enabled for the Markdown input, users can inject arbi-
trary HTML. Even if raw_html is disabled, users can include danger-
ous content in URLs and attributes. To be safe, you should run all
the generated HTML through an HTML sanitizer.
AUTHORS
Copyright 2006–2022 John MacFarlane (jgm@berkeley.edu). Released under
the GPL, version 2 or greater. This software carries no warranty of
any kind. (See COPYRIGHT for full copyright and warranty notices.)
For a full list of contributors, see the file AUTHORS.md in the pandoc
source code.
The Pandoc source code may be downloaded from <https://hack-
age.haskell.org/package/pandoc> or <https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/re-
leases>. Further documentation is available at <https://pandoc.org>.
pandoc 2.17.1.1 January 30, 2022 Pandoc User’s Guide()
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