% pandoc % John MacFarlane % August 10, 2006 `pandoc` converts files from one markup format to another. It can read [markdown] and (with some limitations) [reStructuredText], [HTML], and [LaTeX], and it can write [markdown], [reStructuredText], [HTML], [LaTeX], [RTF], and [S5] HTML slide shows. It is written in [Haskell], using the excellent [Parsec] parser combinator library. [markdown]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ [reStructuredText]: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/introduction.html [S5]: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/ [HTML]: http://www.w3.org/TR/html40/ [LaTeX]: http://www.latex-project.org/ [RTF]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format [Haskell]: http://www.haskell.org/ [Parsec]: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~daan/download/parsec/parsec.html (c) 2006 John MacFarlane (jgm At berkeley.edu). Released under the [GPL], version 2 or greater. This software carries no warranty of any kind. (See LICENSE for full copyright and warranty notices.) [GPL]: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html # Installation ## Installing GHC To compile `pandoc`, you'll need [GHC] version 6.4 or greater. If you don't have GHC already, you can get it from the [GHC Download] page. [GHC]: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ [GHC Download]: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download.html Note: As of this writing, there's no MacOS X installer package for GHC 6.4.2 (the latest version). There is an installer for GHC 6.4.1 [here](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_641.html#macosx). It will work just fine on PPC-based Macs. GHC has not yet been ported to Intel Macs: see . You'll also need standard build tools: GNU Make, sed, bash, and perl. These are standard on unix systems (including MacOS X). If you're using Windows, you can install [Cygwin]. [Cygwin]: http://www.cygwin.com/ Note: I have tested `pandoc` on MacOS X and Linux systems. I have not tried it on Windows, and I have no idea whether it will work on Windows. ## Installing `pandoc` 1. Change to the directory containing the `pandoc` distribution. 2. Compile: make 3. Optional, but recommended: make test 4. If you want to install the `pandoc` program and the relevant wrappers and documents (including this file) into `/usr/local` directory, type: make install If you only want the `pandoc` program and the shell scripts `latex2markdown`, `markdown2latex`, `markdown2pdf`, `markdown2html`, `html2markdown` installed into your `~/bin` directory, type (note the **`-exec`** suffix): PREFIX=~ make install-exec 5. If you want to install the Pandoc library modules for use in other Haskell programs, type (as root): make install-lib 6. To install the library documentation (into `/usr/local/pandoc-doc`), type: make install-lib-doc # Using `pandoc` You can run `pandoc` like this: ./pandoc If you copy the `pandoc` executable to a directory in your path (perhaps using `make install`), you can invoke it without the "./": pandoc If you run `pandoc` without arguments, it will accept input from STDIN. If you run it with file names as arguments, it will take input from those files. It accepts several command-line options. For a list, type pandoc -h The most important options specify the format of the source file and the output. The default reader is markdown; the default writer is HTML. So if you don't specify a reader or writer, `pandoc` will convert markdown to HTML. To convert markdown to LaTeX, you could write: pandoc -w latex input.txt To convert html to markdown: pandoc -r html -w markdown input.txt Supported writers include markdown, LaTeX, HTML, RTF, reStructuredText, and S5 (which produces an HTML file that acts like powerpoint). Supported readers include markdown, HTML, LaTeX, and reStructuredText. Note that the rst (reStructuredText) reader only parses a subset of rst syntax. For example, it doesn't handle tables, definition lists, option lists, or footnotes. It handles only the constructs expressible in unextended markdown. But for simple documents it should be adequate. The LaTeX and HTML readers are also limited in what they can do. `pandoc` writes its output to STDOUT. If you want to write to a file, use redirection: pandoc input.txt > output.html Note that you can specify multiple input files on the command line. `pandoc` will concatenate them all (with blank lines between them) before parsing: pandoc -s chapter1.txt chapter2.txt chapter3.txt references.txt > book.html ## Character encoding Unfortunately, due to limitations in GHC, `pandoc` does not automatically detect the system's local character encoding. Hence, all input and output is assumed to be in the UTF-8 encoding. If you use accented or foreign characters, you should convert the input file to UTF-8 before processing it with `pandoc`. This can be done by piping the input through [`iconv`]: for example, iconv -t utf-8 source.txt | pandoc > output.html will convert `source.txt` from the local encoding to UTF-8, then convert it to HTML, putting the output in `output.html`. [`iconv`]: http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/ The shell scripts (described below) automatically convert the source from the local encoding to UTF-8 before running them through `pandoc`. ## The shell scripts For convenience, five shell scripts have been included that make it easy to run `pandoc` without remembering all the command-line options. All of the scripts presuppose that `pandoc` is in the path, and `html2markdown` also presupposes that `curl` and `tidy` are in the path. 1. `markdown2html` converts markdown to HTML, running `iconv` first to convert the file to UTF-8. (This can be used as a replacement for `Markdown.pl`.) 2. `html2markdown` can take either a filename or a URL as argument. If it is given a URL, it uses `curl` to fetch the contents of the specified URL, then filters this through `tidy` to straighten up the HTML and convert to UTF-8, and finally passes this HTML to `pandoc` to produce markdown text: html2markdown http://www.fsf.org html2markdown www.fsf.org html2markdown subdir/mylocalfile.html 3. `latex2markdown` converts a LaTeX file to markdown. latex2markdown mytexfile.tex 4. `markdown2latex` converts markdown to LaTeX: markdown2latex mytextfile.txt 5. `markdown2pdf` converts markdown to PDF, using LaTeX, but removing all the intermediate files created by LaTeX. Example: markdown2pdf mytextfile.txt creates a file `mytextfile.pdf` in the working directory. # Command-line options Various command-line options can be used to customize the output. For a complete list, type pandoc --help `-p` or `--preserve-tabs` causes tabs in the source text to be preserved, rather than converted to spaces (the default). `--tabstop` allows the user to set the tab stop (which defaults to 4). `-R` or `--parse-raw` causes the HTML and LaTeX readers to parse HTML codes and LaTeX environments that it can't translate as raw HTML or LaTeX. Raw HTML can be printed in markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, and S5 output; raw LaTeX can be printed in markdown, reStructuredText, and LaTeX output. The default is for the readers to omit untranslatable HTML codes and LaTeX environments. (The LaTeX reader does pass through untranslatable LaTeX commands, even if `-R` is not specified.) `-s` or `--standalone` causes `pandoc` to produce a standalone file, complete with appropriate document headers. By default, `pandoc` produces a fragment. `--custom-header` can be used to specify a custom document header. To see the headers used by default, use the `-D` option: for example, `pandoc -D html` prints the default HTML header. `-c` or `--css` allows the user to specify a custom stylesheet that will be linked to in HTML and S5 output. `-H` or `--include-in-header` specifies a file to be included (verbatim) at the end of the document header. This can be used, for example, to include special CSS or javascript in HTML documents. `-B` or `--include-before-body` specifies a file to be included (verbatim) at the beginning of the document body (after the `` tag in HTML, or the `\begin{document}` command in LaTeX). This can be used to include navigation bars or banners in HTML documents. `-A` or `--include-after-body` specifies a file to be included (verbatim) at the end of the docment body (before the `` tag in HTML, or the `\end{document}` command in LaTeX). `-T` or `--title-prefix` specifies a string to be included 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). (See below on Titles.) `-S` or `--smartypants` causes `pandoc` to produce typographically correct HTML output, along the lines of John Gruber's [Smartypants]. Straight quotes are converted to curly quotes, `---` to dashes, and `...` to ellipses. [Smartypants]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/ `-m` or `--asciimathml` will cause LaTeX formulas (between $ signs) in HTML or S5 to display as formulas rather than as code. The trick will not work in all browsers, but it works in Firefox. Peter Jipsen's [ASCIIMathML] script is used to do the magic. [ASCIIMathML]: http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/mathml/asciimath.html `-i` or `--incremental` causes all lists in S5 output to be displayed incrementally by default (one item at a time). The normal default is for lists to be displayed all at once. `-N` or `--number-sections` causes sections to be numbered in LaTeX output. By default, sections are not numbered. # `pandoc`'s markdown vs. standard markdown In parsing markdown, `pandoc` departs from and extends [standard markdown] in a few respects. (To run `pandoc` on the official markdown test suite, type `make markdown_tests`.) [standard markdown]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax ## Lists `pandoc` behaves differently from standard markdown on some "edge cases" involving lists. Consider this source: 1. First 2. Second: - Fee - Fie - Foe 3. Third `pandoc` transforms this into a "compact list" (with no `

` tags around "First", "Second", or "Third"), while markdown puts `

` tags around "Second" and "Third" (but not "First"), because of the blank space around "Third". `pandoc` follows a simple rule: if the text is followed by a blank line, it is treated as a paragraph. Since "Second" is followed by a list, and not a blank line, it isn't treated as a paragraph. The fact that the list is followed by a blank line is irrelevant. ## Literal quotes in titles Standard markdown allows unescaped literal quotes in titles, as in [foo]: "bar "embedded" baz" `pandoc` requires all quotes within titles to be escaped: [foo]: "bar \"embedded\" baz" ## Reference links `pandoc` allows implicit reference links in either of two styles: 1. Here's my [link] 2. Here's my [link][] [link]: linky.com If there's no corresponding reference, the implicit reference link will appear as regular bracketed text. Note: even `[link][]` will appear as `[link]` if there's no reference for `link`. If you want `[link][]`, use a backslash escape: `\[link]\[]`. ## Footnotes `pandoc`'s markdown allows footnotes, using the following syntax: here is a footnote reference,^(1) and another.^(longnote) ^(1) Here is the footnote. It can go anywhere in the document, except in embedded contexts like block quotes or lists. ^(longnote) Here's the other note. This one contains multiple blocks. ^ ^ Caret characters are used to indicate that the blocks all belong to a single footnote (as with block quotes). ^ ^ If you want, you can use a caret at the beginning of every line, ^ as with blockquotes, but all that you need is a caret at the ^ beginning of the first line of the block and any preceding ^ blank lines. Footnote references may not contain spaces, tabs, or newlines. ## Embedded HTML `pandoc` treats embedded HTML in markdown a bit differently than Markdown 1.0. While Markdown 1.0 leaves HTML blocks exactly as they are, `pandoc` treats text between HTML tags as markdown. Thus, for example, `pandoc` will turn
*one* [a link](http://google.com)
into
one a link
whereas Markdown 1.0 will preserve it as is. There is one exception to this rule: text between `` tags is not interpreted as markdown. This departure from standard markdown should make it easier to mix markdown with HTML block elements. For example, one can surround a block of markdown text with `

` tags without preventing it from being interpreted as markdown. ## Title blocks If the file begins with a title block % title % author(s) (separated by commas) % 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 lines. Each must begin with a % and fit on one line. The title may contain standard inline formatting. If you want to include an author but no title, or a title and a date but no author, you need a blank line: % My title % % June 15, 2006 Titles will be written only when the `--standalone` (`-s`) option is chosen. In HTML output, titles will appear twice: once in the document head -- this is the title that will appear at the top of the window in a browser -- and once at the beginning of the document body. The title in the document head can have an optional prefix attached (`--title-prefix` or `-T` option). The title in the body appears as an H1 element with class "title", so it can be suppressed or reformatted with CSS. If a title prefix is specified with `-T` and no title block appears in the document, the title prefix will be used by itself as the HTML title. ## Box-style blockquotes `pandoc` supports emacs-style boxquote block quotes, in addition to standard markdown (email-style) boxquotes: ,---- | They look like this. `---- ## Inline LaTeX Anything between two $ characters will be parsed as LaTeX math. The opening $ must have a character immediately to its right, while the closing $ must have a character immediately to its left. Thus, `$20,000 and $30,000` won't parse as math. The $ character can be escaped with a backslash if needed. If you pass the `-m` (`--asciimathml`) option to `pandoc`, it will include the [ASCIIMathML] script in the resulting HTML. This will cause LaTeX math to be displayed as formulas in better browsers. [ASCIIMathML]: http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/asciimath.html Inline LaTeX commands will also be preserved and passed unchanged to the LaTeX writer. Thus, for example, you can use LaTeX to include BibTeX citations: This result was proved in \cite{jones.1967}. You can also use LaTeX environments. For example, \begin{tabular}{|l|l|}\hline Age & Frequency \\ \hline 18--25 & 15 \\ 26--35 & 33 \\ 36--45 & 22 \\ \hline \end{tabular} Note, however, that material between the begin and end tags will be interpreted as raw LaTeX, not as markdown. ## Custom headers When run with the "standalone" option (`-s`), `pandoc` creates a standalone file, complete with an appropriate header. To see the default headers used for html and latex, use the following commands: pandoc -D html pandoc -D latex If you want to use a different header, just create a file containing it and specify it on the command line as follows: pandoc --header=MyHeaderFile # Producing S5 with `pandoc` Producing an [S5] slide show with `pandoc` is easy. A title page is constructed automatically from the document's title block (see above). Each section (with a level-one header) produces a single slide. (Note that if the section is too big, the slide will not fit on the page; S5 is not smart enough to produce multiple pages.) Here's the markdown source for a simple slide show, `eating.txt`: % Eating Habits % John Doe % March 22, 2005 # In the morning - Eat eggs - Drink coffee # In the evening - Eat spaghetti - Drink wine To produce the slide show, simply type pandoc -w s5 -s eating.txt > eating.html and open up `eating.html` in a browser. The HTML file embeds all the required javascript and CSS, so no other files are necessary. Note that by default, the S5 writer produces lists that display "all at once." If you want your lists to display incrementally (one item at a time), use the `-i` option. If you want a particular list to depart from the default (that is, to display incrementally without the `-i` option and all at once with the `-i` option), put it in a block quote: > - Eat spaghetti > - Drink wine In this way incremental and nonincremental lists can be mixed in a single document.