pandoc/man/man1/pandoc.1.md

% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals % John MacFarlane % January 8, 2008

NAME

pandoc - general markup converter

SYNOPSIS

pandoc [options] [input-file]...

DESCRIPTION

Pandoc converts files from one markup format to another. It can read markdown and (subsets of) reStructuredText, HTML, and LaTeX, and it can write markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, Texinfo, groff man, MediaWiki markup, RTF, OpenDocument XML, ODT, DocBook XML, and S5 HTML slide shows.

If no input-file is specified, input is read from stdin. Otherwise, the input-files are concatenated (with a blank line between each) and used as input. Output goes to stdout by default (though output to stdout is disabled for the odt output format). For output to a file, use the -o option:

pandoc -o output.html input.txt

The input and output formats may be specified using command-line options (see OPTIONS, below, for details). If these formats are not specified explicitly, Pandoc will attempt to determine them from the extensions of the input and output filenames. If input comes from stdin or from a file with an unknown extension, the input is assumed to be markdown. If no output filename is specified using the -o option, or if a filename is specified but its extension is unknown, the output will default to HTML. Thus, for example,

pandoc -o chap1.tex chap1.txt

converts chap1.txt from markdown to LaTeX. And

pandoc README

converts README from markdown to HTML.

Pandoc's version of markdown is an extended variant of standard markdown: the differences are described in the README file in the user documentation. If standard markdown syntax is desired, the --strict option may be used.

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

Pandoc's HTML parser is not very forgiving. If your input is HTML, consider running it through tidy(1) before passing it to Pandoc. Or use html2markdown(1), a wrapper around pandoc.

OPTIONS

-f FORMAT, -r FORMAT, --from=FORMAT, --read=FORMAT

Specify input format. FORMAT can be native (native Haskell), markdown (markdown or plain text), rst (reStructuredText), html (HTML), or latex (LaTeX). If +lhs is appended to markdown, rst, or latex, the input will be treated as literate Haskell source.

-t FORMAT, -w FORMAT, --to=FORMAT, --write=FORMAT

Specify output format. FORMAT can be native (native Haskell), markdown (markdown or plain text), rst (reStructuredText), html (HTML), latex (LaTeX), context (ConTeXt), man (groff man), mediawiki (MediaWiki markup), texinfo (GNU Texinfo), docbook (DocBook XML), opendocument (OpenDocument XML), odt (OpenOffice text document), s5 (S5 HTML and javascript slide show), or rtf (rich text format). Note that odt output will not be directed to stdout; an output filename must be specified using the -o/--output option. If +lhs is appended to markdown, rst, latex, or html, the output will be rendered as literate Haskell source.

-s, --standalone

Produce output with an appropriate header and footer (e.g. a standalone HTML, LaTeX, or RTF file, not a fragment).

-o FILE, --output=FILE

Write output to FILE instead of stdout. If FILE is `-', output will go to stdout.

-p, --preserve-tabs

Preserve tabs instead of converting them to spaces.

--tab-stop=TABSTOP

Specify tab stop (default is 4).

--strict

Use strict markdown syntax, with no extensions or variants.

--reference-links

Use reference-style links, rather than inline links, in writing markdown or reStructuredText.

-R, --parse-raw

Parse untranslatable HTML codes and LaTeX environments as raw HTML or LaTeX, instead of ignoring them.

-S, --smart

Use smart quotes, dashes, and ellipses. (This option is significant only when the input format is markdown. It is selected automatically when the output format is latex or context.)

-mURL, --latexmathml=URL

Use LaTeXMathML to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. To insert a link to a local copy of the LaTeXMathML.js script, provide a URL. If no URL is provided, the contents of the script will be inserted directly into the HTML header.

--jsmath=URL

Use jsMath to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should point to the jsMath load script; if provided, it will be linked to in the header of standalone HTML documents.

--gladtex

Enclose TeX math in <eq> tags in HTML output. These can then be processed by gladTeX to produce links to images of the typeset formulas.

--mimetex=URL

Render TeX math using the mimeTeX CGI script. If URL is not specified, it is assumed that the script is at /cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi.

-i, --incremental

Make list items in S5 display incrementally (one by one).

--xetex

Create LaTeX outut suitable for processing by XeTeX.

-N, --number-sections

Number section headings in LaTeX, ConTeXt, or HTML output. (Default is not to number them.)

--no-wrap

Disable text wrapping in output. (Default is to wrap text.)

--sanitize-html

Sanitizes HTML (in markdown or HTML input) using a whitelist. Unsafe tags are replaced by HTML comments; unsafe attributes are omitted. URIs in links and images are also checked against a whitelist of URI schemes.

--email-obfuscation=none|javascript|references

Specify a method for obfuscating mailto: links in HTML documents. none leaves mailto: links as they are. javascript obfuscates them using javascript. references obfuscates them by printing their letters as decimal or hexadecimal character references. If --strict is specified, references is used regardless of the presence of this option.

--id-prefix*=string*

Specify a prefix to be added to all automatically generated identifiers in HTML output. This is useful for preventing duplicate identifiers when generating fragments to be included in other pages.

--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.

--toc, --table-of-contents

Include an automatically generated table of contents (HTML, markdown, RTF) or an instruction to create one (LaTeX, reStructuredText). This option has no effect on man, DocBook, or S5 output.

--template=FILE

Use FILE as a custom template for the generated document. Implies -s. See TEMPLATES below for a description of template syntax. If this option is not used, a default template appropriate for the output format will be used. See also -D/--print-default-template.

-V KEY=VAL, --variable=KEY:VAL

Set the template variable KEY to the value VAL when rendering the document in standalone mode. This is only useful when the --template option is used to specify a custom template, since pandoc automatically sets the variables used in the default templates.

-c CSS, --css=CSS

Link to a CSS style sheet. CSS is the pathname of the style sheet.

-H FILE, --include-in-header=FILE

Include contents of FILE at the end of the header. Implies -s.

-B FILE, --include-before-body=FILE

Include contents of FILE at the beginning of the document body.

-A FILE, --include-after-body=FILE

Include contents of FILE at the end of the document body.

-C FILE, --custom-header=FILE

Use contents of FILE as the document header (overriding the default header, which can be printed by using the -D option). Implies -s. Note: This option is deprecated. Users should transition to using --template instead.

--reference-odt=filename

Use the specified file as a style reference in producing an 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 $HOME/.pandoc/reference.odt (on unix) or C:\Documents And Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\pandoc\reference.odt (on Windows). If this is not found either, sensible defaults will be used.

-D FORMAT, --print-default-template=FORMAT

Print the default template for an output FORMAT. (See -t for a list of possible FORMATs.)

-T STRING, --title-prefix=STRING

Specify STRING as a prefix to the HTML window title.

--dump-args

Print information about command-line arguments to stdout, then exit. The first line of output contains the name of the output file specified with the -o option, or `-' (for stdout) if no output file was specified. The remaining lines contain the command-line arguments, one per line, in the order they appear. These do not include regular Pandoc options and their arguments, but do include any options appearing after a `--' separator at the end of the line. This option is intended primarily for use in wrapper scripts.

--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

-v, --version

Print version.

-h, --help

Show usage message.

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 --print-default-template=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 FORMAT.template in $HOME/.pandoc/templates (on unix) or C:\Documents And Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\pandoc\templates (on Windows).

Templates may contain variables. Variable names are sequences of alphanumerics, -, and _, starting with a letter. A variable name surrounded by $ signs will be replaced by its value. For example, the string $title$ in

<title>$title$</title>

will be replaced by the document title.

To write a literal $ in a template, use $$.

Some variables are set automatically by pandoc. These vary somewhat depending on the output format, but include:

legacy-header

contents specified by -C/--custom-header header-includes

contents specified by -H/--include-in-header (may have multiple values) toc

non-null value if --toc/--table-of-contents was specified body

body of document title

title of document, as specified in title block author

author of document, as specified in title block (may have multiple values) date

date of document, as specified in title block

Variables may be set at the command line using the -V/--variable option. This allows users to include custom variables in their templates.

Templates may contain conditionals. The syntax is as follows:

$if(variable)$
X 
$else$
Y
$endif$

This will include X in the template if variable has a non-null value; otherwise it will include Y. X and Y are placeholders for any valid template text, and may include interpolated variables or other conditionals. The $else$ section may be omitted.

When variables can have multiple values (for example, author in a multi-author document), you can use the $for$ keyword:

$for(author)$
<meta name="author" content="$author$" />
$endfor$

You can optionally specify a separator to be used between consecutive items:

$for(author)$$author$$sep$, $endfor$

SEE ALSO

hsmarkdown(1), html2markdown(1), markdown2pdf (1). The README file distributed with Pandoc contains full documentation.

The Pandoc source code and all documentation may be downloaded from http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/.