49 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
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---
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author:
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- John MacFarlane
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date: 'November 21, 2021'
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title: Creating Custom Pandoc Writers in Lua
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---
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# Introduction
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If you need to render a format not already handled by pandoc,
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or you want to change how pandoc renders a format,
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you can create a custom writer using the [Lua] language.
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Pandoc has a built-in Lua interpreter, so you needn't
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install any additional software to do this.
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[Lua]: https://www.lua.org
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A custom writer is a Lua file that defines functions for
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rendering each element of a pandoc AST.
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For example,
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``` lua
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function Para(s)
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return "<paragraph>" .. s .. "</paragraph>"
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end
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```
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The best way to go about creating a custom writer is to modify
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the example that comes with pandoc. To get the example, you
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can do
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```
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pandoc --print-default-data-file sample.lua > sample.lua
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```
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`sample.lua` is a full-features HTML writer, with explanatory
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comments. To use it, just use the path to the custom writer as
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the writer name:
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```
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pandoc -t sample.lua myfile.md
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```
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`sample.lua` defines all the functions needed by any custom
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writer, so you can design your own custom writer by modifying
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the functions in `sample.lua` according to your needs.
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