diff --git a/Pandoc.cabal.in b/Pandoc.cabal.in
index d3559c5ec..3ae0f47d4 100644
--- a/Pandoc.cabal.in
+++ b/Pandoc.cabal.in
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Description:     Haskell utilities for translating between markdown, HTML,
 Build-Depends:   @BUILD_DEPENDS@
 @HS_SOURCE_DIRS@: src
 Exposed-Modules: Text.ParserCombinators.Pandoc,
+                 Text.Pandoc,
                  Text.Pandoc.ASCIIMathML,
                  Text.Pandoc.Definition,
                  Text.Pandoc.Entities,
diff --git a/src/Text/Pandoc.hs b/src/Text/Pandoc.hs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..80293b8c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/Text/Pandoc.hs
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+{-
+Copyright (C) 2006 John MacFarlane <jgm at berkeley dot edu>
+
+This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+(at your option) any later version.
+
+This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
+-}
+
+{- |
+   Module      : Text.Pandoc
+   Copyright   : Copyright (C) 2006 John MacFarlane
+   License     : GNU GPL, version 2 or above 
+
+   Maintainer  : John MacFarlane <jgm at berkeley dot edu>
+   Stability   : alpha 
+   Portability : portable
+
+This helper module exports the basic writers, readers, and definitions
+from the Pandoc libraries.
+-}
+
+module Text.Pandoc
+               ( 
+                 module Text.Pandoc.Definition
+
+               -- Text.Pandoc.UTF8
+               , encodeUTF8
+               , decodeUTF8
+            
+               -- readers
+               , readMarkdown
+               , readRST
+               , readLaTeX
+               , readHtml
+
+               -- writers
+               , writeMarkdown
+               , writeRST
+               , writeLaTeX
+               , writeHtml
+               , writeHtmlString
+               , writeS5
+               , writeDocbook
+               , writeRTF
+
+               -- module Text.Pandoc.Shared
+               , ParserContext (..)
+               , QuoteContext (..)
+               , ParserState (..)
+               , defaultParserState
+               , WriterOptions (..)
+               , defaultWriterOptions
+             ) where
+
+import Text.Pandoc.Definition
+import Text.Pandoc.Readers.Markdown
+import Text.Pandoc.Readers.RST
+import Text.Pandoc.Readers.LaTeX
+import Text.Pandoc.Readers.HTML
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.Markdown
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.RST 
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.LaTeX
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.HTML
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.S5
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.Docbook
+import Text.Pandoc.Writers.RTF 
+import Text.Pandoc.UTF8
+import Text.Pandoc.Shared
+