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. It can read Markdown, CommonMark, PHP Markdown Extra, GitHub-Flavored Markdown, MultiMarkdown, and (subsets of) Textile, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, MediaWiki markup, TWiki markup, Haddock markup, OPML, Emacs Org mode, DocBook, txt2tags, EPUB, ODT and Word docx; and it can write plain text, Markdown, CommonMark, PHP Markdown Extra, GitHub-Flavored Markdown, MultiMarkdown, reStructuredText, XHTML, HTML5, LaTeX (including [beamer] slide shows), ConTeXt, RTF, OPML, DocBook, OpenDocument, ODT, Word docx, GNU Texinfo, MediaWiki markup, DokuWiki markup, ZimWiki markup, Haddock markup, EPUB (v2 or v3), FictionBook2, Textile, groff man pages, Emacs Org mode, AsciiDoc, InDesign ICML, TEI Simple, and Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, reveal.js or S5 HTML slide shows. It can also produce PDF output on systems where LaTeX, ConTeXt, or wkhtmltopdf is installed.

Pandoc's enhanced version of Markdown includes syntax for [footnotes], [tables], flexible [ordered lists], [definition lists], [fenced code blocks], [superscripts and subscripts], [strikeout], [metadata blocks], automatic tables of contents, embedded LaTeX [math], [citations], and [Markdown inside HTML block elements][Extension: markdown_in_html_blocks]. (These enhancements, described further under [Pandoc's Markdown], can be disabled using the markdown_strict input or output format.)

In contrast to most existing tools for converting Markdown to HTML, which use regex substitutions, 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, 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.

Because pandoc's intermediate representation of a document is less expressive than many of the formats it converts between, one should not expect perfect conversions between every format and every other. Pandoc 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 model. 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-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, docx, epub, and epub3 output formats). For output to a file, use the -o option:

pandoc -o output.html input.txt

By default, pandoc produces a document fragment, not a standalone document with a proper header and footer. To produce a standalone document, use the -s or --standalone flag:

pandoc -s -o output.html input.txt

For more information on how standalone documents are produced, see [Templates], below.

Instead of a file, an absolute URI may be given. In this case pandoc will fetch the content using HTTP:

pandoc -f html -t markdown http://www.fsf.org

If multiple input files are given, pandoc will concatenate them all (with blank lines between them) before parsing. This feature is disabled for binary input formats such as EPUB, odt, and docx.

The format of the input and output can be specified explicitly using command-line options. The input format can be specified using the -r/--read or -f/--from options, the output format using the -w/--write or -t/--to options. 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 output formats are listed below under the -t/--to option. Supported input formats are listed below under the -f/--from option. Note that the rst, textile, latex, and html readers are not complete; there are some constructs that they do not parse.

If the input or output format is not specified explicitly, pandoc will attempt to guess it from the extensions of the input and output 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 extension is unknown, the output format will default to HTML. If no input 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 unless explicitly specified.

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. By default, pandoc will use LaTeX to convert it to PDF:

pandoc test.txt -o test.pdf

Production of a PDF requires that a LaTeX engine be installed (see --latex-engine, below), and assumes that the following LaTeX packages are available: [amsfonts], [amsmath], [lm], [ifxetex], [ifluatex], [eurosym], [listings] (if the --listings option is used), [fancyvrb], [longtable], [booktabs], [graphicx] and [grffile] (if the document contains images), [hyperref], [ulem], [geometry] (with the geometry variable set), [setspace] (with linestretch), and [babel] (with lang). The use of xelatex or lualatex as the LaTeX engine requires [fontspec]; xelatex uses [mathspec], [polyglossia] (with lang), [xecjk], and [bidi] (with the dir variable set). The [upquote] and [microtype] packages are used if available, and [csquotes] will be used for [smart punctuation] if added to the template or included in any header file. The [natbib], [biblatex], [bibtex], and [biber] packages can optionally be used for [citation rendering]. These are included with all recent versions of TeX Live.

Alternatively, pandoc can use ConTeXt or wkhtmltopdf to create a PDF. To do this, specify an output file with a .pdf extension, as before, but add -t context or -t html5 to the command line.

PDF output can be controlled using [variables for LaTeX] (if LaTeX is used) and [variables for ConTeXt] (if ConTeXt is used). If wkhtmltopdf is used, then the variables margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom, and papersize will affect the output, as will --css.

Options

General options

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

Specify input format. FORMAT can be native (native Haskell), json (JSON version of native AST), markdown (pandoc's extended Markdown), markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown), markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra), markdown_github (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown), commonmark (CommonMark Markdown), textile (Textile), rst (reStructuredText), html (HTML), docbook (DocBook), t2t (txt2tags), docx (docx), odt (ODT), epub (EPUB), opml (OPML), org (Emacs Org mode), mediawiki (MediaWiki markup), twiki (TWiki markup), haddock (Haddock markup), or latex (LaTeX). If +lhs is appended to markdown, rst, latex, or html, the input will be treated as literate Haskell source: see [Literate Haskell support], below. Markdown syntax extensions can be individually enabled or disabled by appending +EXTENSION or -EXTENSION to the format name. So, for example, markdown_strict+footnotes+definition_lists is strict Markdown with footnotes and definition lists enabled, and markdown-pipe_tables+hard_line_breaks is pandoc's Markdown without pipe tables and with hard line breaks. See [Pandoc's Markdown], below, for a list of extensions and their names. See --list-input-formats and --list-extensions, below.

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

Specify output format. FORMAT can be native (native Haskell), json (JSON version of native AST), plain (plain text), markdown (pandoc's extended Markdown), markdown_strict (original unextended Markdown), markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra), markdown_github (GitHub-Flavored Markdown), markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown), commonmark (CommonMark Markdown), rst (reStructuredText), html (XHTML), html5 (HTML5), latex (LaTeX), beamer (LaTeX beamer slide show), context (ConTeXt), man (groff man), mediawiki (MediaWiki markup), dokuwiki (DokuWiki markup), zimwiki (ZimWiki markup), textile (Textile), org (Emacs Org mode), texinfo (GNU Texinfo), opml (OPML), docbook (DocBook 4), docbook5 (DocBook 5), opendocument (OpenDocument), odt (OpenOffice text document), docx (Word docx), haddock (Haddock markup), rtf (rich text format), epub (EPUB v2 book), epub3 (EPUB v3), fb2 (FictionBook2 e-book), asciidoc (AsciiDoc), icml (InDesign ICML), tei (TEI Simple), slidy (Slidy HTML and JavaScript slide show), slideous (Slideous 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), or the path of a custom lua writer (see [Custom writers], below). Note that odt, epub, and epub3 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, beamer, html, or html5, the output will be rendered as literate Haskell source: see [Literate Haskell support], below. Markdown syntax extensions can be individually enabled or disabled by appending +EXTENSION or -EXTENSION to the format name, as described above under -f. See --list-output-formats and --list-extensions, below.

-o FILE, --output=FILE

Write output to FILE instead of stdout. If FILE is -, output will go to stdout. (Exception: if the output format is odt, docx, epub, or epub3, output to stdout is disabled.)

--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. This is, in Unix:

    $HOME/.pandoc

in Windows XP:

    C:\Documents And Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\pandoc

and in Windows Vista or later:

    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\pandoc

You can find the default user data directory on your system by
looking at the output of `pandoc --version`.
A `reference.odt`, `reference.docx`, `epub.css`, `templates`,
`slidy`, `slideous`, or `s5` directory
placed in this directory will override pandoc's normal defaults.

--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. Currently this only has an effect with PDF output.

--list-input-formats

List supported input formats, one per line.

--list-output-formats

List supported output formats, one per line.

--list-extensions

List supported Markdown extensions, one per line, followed by a + or - indicating whether it is enabled by default in pandoc's Markdown.

--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

-R, --parse-raw

Parse untranslatable HTML codes and LaTeX environments as raw HTML or LaTeX, instead of ignoring them. Affects only HTML and LaTeX input. Raw HTML can be printed in Markdown, reStructuredText, Emacs Org mode, HTML, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, reveal.js, and S5 output; raw LaTeX can be printed in Markdown, reStructuredText, Emacs Org mode, LaTeX, and ConTeXt 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, --smart

Produce typographically correct output, converting straight quotes to curly quotes, --- to em-dashes, -- to en-dashes, and ... to ellipses. Nonbreaking spaces are inserted after certain abbreviations, such as "Mr." (Note: This option is selected automatically when the output format is latex or context, unless --no-tex-ligatures is used. It has no effect for latex input.)

--old-dashes

Selects the pandoc <= 1.8.2.1 behavior for parsing smart dashes: - before a numeral is an en-dash, and -- is an em-dash. This option is selected automatically for textile input.

--base-header-level=NUMBER

Specify the base level for headers (defaults to 1).

--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 documents. 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.

--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`
exports `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-executable)

 2. `$DATADIR/filters` (executable or non-executable)

 3. `$PATH` (executable only)

-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. Values will be parsed as YAML boolean 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 accessible from filters and may be printed in some output formats).

--normalize

Normalize the document after reading: merge adjacent Str or Emph elements, for example, and remove repeated Spaces.

-p, --preserve-tabs

Preserve tabs instead of converting them to spaces (the default). Note that this will only affect tabs in literal code spans and code blocks; tabs in regular text will be 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), inserts all insertions, and ignores all deletions. reject inserts all deletions and ignores insertions. Both accept and reject ignore comments. all puts in insertions, deletions, and comments, wrapped in spans with insertion, deletion, comment-start, and comment-end classes, respectively. The author and time of change is included. all is useful for scripting: only accepting changes from a certain reviewer, say, or before a certain date. This option only affects the docx reader.

--extract-media=DIR

Extract images and other media contained in a docx or epub container to the path DIR, creating it if necessary, and adjust the images references in the document so they point to the extracted files. This option only affects the docx and epub readers.

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.

--template=FILE

Use 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 templates 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-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 generally only useful when the --template option is used to specify a custom template, since pandoc automatically sets the variables used in the default templates. If no VAL is specified, the key will be given the value true.

-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 directory are ignored.

--print-default-data-file=FILE

Print a system default data file. Files in the user data directory are ignored.

--dpi=NUMBER

Specify the dpi (dots per inch) value for conversion from pixels to inch/centimeters and vice versa. The default is 96dpi. Technically, the correct term would be ppi (pixels per inch).

--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 newlines in the source, there will be nonsemantic newlines in the output as well). Automatic wrapping does not currently work in HTML output.

--no-wrap

Deprecated synonym for --wrap=none.

--columns=NUMBER

Specify length of lines in characters. This affects text wrapping 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, and rst, an instruction to create one) in the output document. This option has no effect on man, docbook, docbook5, slidy, slideous, s5, or odt output.

--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 headers will be listed in the contents).

--no-highlight

Disables syntax highlighting for code blocks and inlines, even when a language attribute is given.

--highlight-style=STYLE

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 information on syntax highlighting in pandoc, see [Syntax highlighting], below. See also --list-highlight-styles.

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

Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the end of the header. This can be used, for example, to include special CSS or JavaScript 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

Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the beginning of the document body (e.g. after the <body> tag in HTML, or the \begin{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 included in the order specified. Implies --standalone.

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

Include contents of FILE, verbatim, at the end of the document body (before the </body> tag in HTML, or the \end{document} command in LaTeX). This option can be used repeatedly to include multiple files. They will be included in the order specified. Implies --standalone.

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. The resulting file should be "self-contained," in the sense that it needs no external files and no net access to be displayed properly by a browser. This option works only with HTML output formats, including html, html5, html+lhs, html5+lhs, s5, slidy, slideous, dzslides, and revealjs. Scripts, images, and stylesheets at absolute URLs will be downloaded; those at relative 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). Limitation: resources that are loaded dynamically through JavaScript cannot be incorporated; 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.

--ascii

Use only ASCII characters in output. Currently supported only for HTML output (which uses numerical entities instead of UTF-8 when this option is selected).

--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 only affects the markdown writer.

--atx-headers

Use ATX-style headers in Markdown and AsciiDoc output. The default is to use setext-style headers for levels 1-2, and then ATX headers.

--chapters

Deprecated synonym for --top-level-division=chapter.

--top-level-division=[default|section|chapter|part]

Treat top-level headers as the given division type in LaTeX, ConTeXt, DocBook, and TEI output. The hierarchy order is part, chapter, then section; all headers are shifted such that the top-level header becomes the specified type. The default behavior is to determine the best division type via heuristics: unless other conditions apply, section is chosen. When the LaTeX document class is set to report, book, or memoir (unless the article option is specified), chapter is implied as the setting for this option. If beamer is the output format, specifying either chapter or part will cause top-level headers to become \part{..}, while second-level headers remain as their default type.

-N, --number-sections

Number section headings in LaTeX, ConTeXt, HTML, 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 number for top-level headers, the second for second-level headers, and so on. So, for example, if you want the first top-level header in your document to be numbered "6", specify --number-offset=5. If your document starts with a level-2 header which you want to be numbered "1.5", specify --number-offset=1,4. Offsets are 0 by default. Implies --number-sections.

--no-tex-ligatures

Do not use the TeX ligatures for quotation marks, apostrophes, and dashes (`...', ``..'', --, ---) when writing or reading LaTeX or ConTeXt. In reading LaTeX, parse the characters `, ', and - literally, rather than parsing ligatures for quotation marks and dashes. In writing LaTeX or ConTeXt, print unicode quotation mark and dash characters literally, rather than converting them to the standard ASCII TeX ligatures. Note: normally --smart is selected automatically for LaTeX and ConTeXt output, but it must be specified explicitly if --no-tex-ligatures is selected. If you use literal curly quotes, dashes, and ellipses in your source, then you may want to use --no-tex-ligatures without --smart.

--listings

Use the [listings] package for LaTeX code blocks

-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 headers with the specified level create slides (for beamer, s5, slidy, slideous, dzslides). Headers above this level in the hierarchy are used to divide the slide show into sections; headers below this level create subheads within a slide. The default is to set the slide level based on the contents of the document; see [Structuring the slide show].

--section-divs

Wrap sections in <div> tags (or <section> tags in HTML5), and attach identifiers to the enclosing <div> (or <section>) rather than the header itself. See [Header identifiers], below.

--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. The default is none.

--id-prefix=STRING

Specify a prefix to be added to all automatically generated identifiers in HTML and DocBook output, and to footnote numbers in Markdown output. This is useful for preventing duplicate 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.

--reference-odt=FILE

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 a file reference.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
--print-default-data-file reference.odt >
custom-reference.odt`.  Then open `custom-reference.docx` in
LibreOffice, modify the styles as you wish, and save the
file.

--reference-docx=FILE

Use the specified file as a style reference in producing a docx file. For best results, the reference docx should be a modified version of a docx file produced using pandoc. The contents 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
--print-default-data-file reference.docx >
custom-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] Normal,
Body Text, First Paragraph, Compact, Title, Subtitle,
Author, Date, Abstract, Bibliography, Heading 1, Heading 2,
Heading 3, Heading 4, Heading 5, Heading 6, Block Text,
Footnote Text, Definition Term, Definition, Caption, Table
Caption, Image Caption, Figure, Figure With Caption, TOC
Heading; [character] Default Paragraph Font, Body Text Char,
Verbatim Char, Footnote Reference, Hyperlink; [table] Normal
Table.

--epub-stylesheet=FILE

Use the specified CSS file to style the EPUB. If no stylesheet is specified, 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.

--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 example:

     <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 Metadata].

--epub-embed-font=FILE

Embed the specified font in the EPUB. This option can be repeated 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 declarations like the following to your CSS (see --epub-stylesheet):

    @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 header level at which to split the EPUB into separate "chapter" files. The default is to split into chapters at level 1 headers. This option only affects the internal composition of the EPUB, not the way chapters and sections are displayed to users. Some readers may be slow if the chapter files are too large, so for large documents with few level 1 headers, one might want to use a chapter level of 2 or 3.

--latex-engine=pdflatex|lualatex|xelatex

Use the specified LaTeX engine when producing PDF output. The default is pdflatex. If the engine is not in your PATH, the full path of the engine may be specified here.

--latex-engine-opt=STRING

Use the given string as a command-line argument to the latex-engine. If used multiple times, the arguments are provided with spaces between them. Note that no check for duplicate options is done.

Citation rendering

--bibliography=FILE

Set the bibliography field in the document's metadata to FILE, overriding any value set in the metadata, and process citations using pandoc-citeproc. (This is equivalent to --metadata bibliography=FILE --filter pandoc-citeproc.) If --natbib or --biblatex is also supplied, pandoc-citeproc is not used, making this equivalent to --metadata bibliography=FILE. If you supply this argument multiple times, each FILE will be added to bibliography.

--csl=FILE

Set the csl field in the document's metadata to FILE, overriding any value set in the metadata. (This is equivalent to --metadata csl=FILE.) This option is only relevant with pandoc-citeproc.

--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.) This option is only relevant with pandoc-citeproc.

--natbib

Use [natbib] for citations in LaTeX output. This option is not for use with the pandoc-citeproc filter 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 pandoc-citeproc filter 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

-m [URL], --latexmathml[=URL]

Use the LaTeXMathML script 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, preserving portability at the price of efficiency. If you plan to use math on several pages, it is much better to link to a copy of the script, so it can be cached.

--mathml[=URL]

Convert TeX math to MathML (in docbook, docbook5, html and html5). In standalone html output, a small JavaScript (or a link to such a script if a URL is supplied) will be inserted that allows the MathML to be viewed on some browsers.

--jsmath[=URL]

Use jsMath to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should point to the jsMath load script (e.g. jsMath/easy/load.js); if provided, it will be linked to in the header of standalone HTML documents. If a URL is not provided, no link to the jsMath load script will be inserted; it is then up to the author to provide such a link in the HTML template.

--mathjax[=URL]

Use MathJax to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should point to the MathJax.js load script. If a URL is not provided, a link to the MathJax CDN will be inserted.

--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.

--webtex[=URL]

Render TeX formulas using an external script that converts TeX formulas to images. The formula will be concatenated with the URL provided. If URL is not specified, the CodeCogs will be used. 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 support.

--katex[=URL]

Use KaTeX to display embedded TeX math in HTML output. The URL should point to the katex.js load script. If a URL is not provided, a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted. Note: KaTeX seems to work best with html5 output.

--katex-stylesheet=URL

The URL should point to the katex.css stylesheet. If this option is not specified, a link to the KaTeX CDN will be inserted. Note that this option does not imply --katex.

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 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.

--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

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 default.beamer template, if you use -t beamer, or the default.context template, if you use -t context).
• docx has no template (however, you can use --reference-docx to customize the output).

Templates contain variables, which allow for the inclusion of arbitrary information at any point in the file. Variables may be set within the document using [YAML metadata blocks][Extension: yaml_metadata_block]. They may also be set at the command line using the -V/--variable option: variables set in this way override metadata fields with the same name.

Variables set by pandoc

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

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][Extension: pandoc_title_block], which allows for multiple authors, or through a YAML metadata block:

    ---
    author:
    - Aristotle
    - Peter Abelard
    ...

subtitle

document subtitle, included in HTML, EPUB, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and Word docx; renders in LaTeX only when using a document class that supports \subtitle, such as beamer or the KOMA-Script series (scrartcl, scrreprt, scrbook).1

institute

author affiliations (in LaTeX and Beamer only). Can be a list, when there are multiple authors.

abstract

document summary, included in LaTeX, ConTeXt, AsciiDoc, and Word docx

keywords

list of keywords to be included in HTML, PDF, and AsciiDoc metadata; may be repeated as for author, above

header-includes

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

toc

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

toc-title

title of table of contents (works only with EPUB and docx)

include-before

contents specified by -B/--include-before-body (may have multiple values)

include-after

contents specified by -A/--include-after-body (may have multiple values)

body

body of document

meta-json

JSON representation of all of the document's metadata

Language variables

lang

identifies the main language of the document, using a code according to BCP 47 (e.g. en or en-GB). For some output formats, pandoc will convert it to an appropriate format stored in the additional variables babel-lang, polyglossia-lang (LaTeX) and context-lang (ConTeXt).

Native pandoc `span`s and `div`s with the lang attribute
(value in BCP 47) can be used to switch the language in
that range.

otherlangs

a list of other languages used in the document in the YAML metadata, according to BCP 47. For example: otherlangs: [en-GB, fr]. This is automatically generated from the lang attributes in all spans and divs but can be overridden. Currently only used by LaTeX through the generated babel-otherlangs and polyglossia-otherlangs variables. The LaTeX writer outputs polyglossia commands in the text but the babel-newcommands variable contains mappings for them to the corresponding babel.

dir

the base direction of the document, either rtl (right-to-left) or ltr (left-to-right).

For bidirectional documents, native pandoc `span`s and `div`s
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 generating HTML) supports the
[Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm].

When using LaTeX for bidirectional documents, only the `xelatex` engine
is fully supported (use `--latex-engine=xelatex`).

Variables for slides

Variables are available for [producing slide shows with pandoc], including all reveal.js configuration options.

slidy-url

base URL for Slidy documents (defaults to http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy2)

slideous-url

base URL for Slideous documents (defaults to slideous)

s5-url

base URL for S5 documents (defaults to s5/default)

revealjs-url

base URL for reveal.js documents (defaults to reveal.js)

theme, colortheme, fonttheme, innertheme, outertheme

themes for LaTeX [beamer] documents

themeoptions

options for LaTeX beamer themes (a list).

navigation

controls navigation symbols in beamer documents (default is empty for no navigation symbols; other valid values are frame, vertical, and horizontal).

section-titles

enables on "title pages" for new sections in beamer documents (default = true).

beamerarticle

when true, the beamerarticle package is loaded (for producing an article from beamer slides).

colorlinks

add color to link text; automatically enabled if any of linkcolor, citecolor, urlcolor, or toccolor are set (for beamer only).

linkcolor, citecolor, urlcolor, toccolor

color for internal links, citation links, external links, and links in table of contents: uses any of the predefined LaTeX colors (for beamer only).

Variables for LaTeX

LaTeX variables are used when [creating a PDF].

papersize

paper size, e.g. letter, A4

fontsize

font size for body text (e.g. 10pt, 12pt)

documentclass

document class, e.g. [article], [report], [book], [memoir]

classoption

option for document class, e.g. oneside; may be repeated for multiple options

geometry

option for [geometry] package, e.g. margin=1in; may be repeated for multiple options

margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom

sets margins, if geometry is not used (otherwise geometry overrides these)

linestretch

adjusts line spacing using the [setspace] package, e.g. 1.25, 1.5

fontfamily

font package for use with pdflatex: TeX Live includes many options, documented in the LaTeX Font Catalogue. The default is [Latin Modern][lm].

fontfamilyoptions

options for package used as fontfamily: e.g. osf,sc with fontfamily set to [mathpazo] provides Palatino with old-style figures and true small caps; may be repeated for multiple options

mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJKmainfont

font families for use with xelatex or lualatex: take the name of any system font, using the [fontspec] package. Note that if CJKmainfont is used, the [xecjk] package must be available.

mainfontoptions, sansfontoptions, monofontoptions, mathfontoptions, CJKoptions

options to use with mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont, CJKmainfont in xelatex and lualatex. Allow for any choices available through [fontspec], such as the OpenType features Numbers=OldStyle,Numbers=Proportional. May be repeated for multiple options.

fontenc

allows font encoding to be specified through fontenc package (with pdflatex); default is T1 (see guide to LaTeX font encodings)

microtypeoptions

options to pass to the microtype package

colorlinks

add color to link text; automatically enabled if any of linkcolor, citecolor, urlcolor, or toccolor are set

linkcolor, citecolor, urlcolor, toccolor

color for internal links, citation links, external links, and links in table of contents: uses any of the predefined LaTeX colors

links-as-notes

causes links to be printed as footnotes

indent

uses document class settings for indentation (the default LaTeX template otherwise removes indentation and adds space between paragraphs)

subparagraph

disables default behavior of LaTeX template that redefines (sub)paragraphs as sections, changing the appearance of nested headings in some classes

thanks

specifies 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

secnumdepth

numbering depth for sections, if sections are numbered

lof, lot

include list of figures, list of tables

bibliography

bibliography to use for resolving references

biblio-style

bibliography style, when used with --natbib and --biblatex.

biblio-title

bibliography title, when used with --natbib and --biblatex.

biblatexoptions

list of options for biblatex.

Variables for ConTeXt

papersize

paper size, e.g. letter, A4, landscape (see ConTeXt Paper Setup); may be repeated for multiple options

layout

options for page margins and text arrangement (see ConTeXt Layout); may be repeated for multiple options

margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, margin-bottom

sets margins, if layout is not used (otherwise layout overrides these)

fontsize

font size for body text (e.g. 10pt, 12pt)

mainfont, sansfont, monofont, mathfont

font families: take the name of any system font (see ConTeXt Font Switching)

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, boldslanted, type, cap, small

indenting

controls indentation of paragraphs, e.g. yes,small,next (see ConTeXt Indentation); may be repeated for multiple options

whitespace

spacing between paragraphs, e.g. none, small (using [setupwhitespace])

interlinespace

adjusts line spacing, e.g. 4ex (using [setupinterlinespace]); may be repeated for multiple options

headertext, footertext

text to be placed in running header or footer (see ConTeXt Headers and Footers); may be repeated up to four times for different placement

pagenumbering

page number style and location (using [setuppagenumbering]); may be repeated for multiple options

toc

include table of contents (can also be set using --toc/--table-of-contents)

lof, lot

include list of figures, list of tables

Variables for man pages

section

section number in man pages

header

header in man pages

footer

footer in man pages

adjusting

adjusts text to left (l), right (r), center (c), or both (b) margins

hyphenate

if true (the default), hyphenation will be used

Using variables in templates

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 $$.

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$, $endfor$

A dot can be used to select a field of a variable that takes an object as its value. So, for example:

$author.name$ ($author.affiliation$)

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.

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 standard Markdown. Except where noted, these differences can be suppressed by using the markdown_strict format instead of markdown. An extensions can be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name and disabled by adding -EXTENSION. For example, markdown_strict+footnotes is strict Markdown with footnotes enabled, while markdown-footnotes-pipe_tables is pandoc's Markdown without footnotes or pipe tables.

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 tables, 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 paragraphs 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.

Headers

There are two kinds of headers: Setext and ATX.

Setext-style headers

A setext-style header is a line of text "underlined" with a row of = signs (for a level one header) or - signs (for a level two header):

A level-one header
==================

A level-two header
------------------

The header text can contain inline formatting, such as emphasis (see [Inline formatting], below).

ATX-style headers