Pandoc

Overview

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 and (subsets of) reStructuredText, HTML, and LaTeX, and it can write markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, PDF, RTF, DocBook XML, OpenDocument XML, ODT, GNU Texinfo, MediaWiki markup, groff man pages, and S5 HTML slide shows.

Pandoc features

• Modular design, using separate writers and readers for each supported format.
• A real markdown parser, not based on regex substitutions. More accurate and much faster than Markdown.pl.
• Also parses (subsets of) reStructuredText, LaTeX, and HTML.
• Multiple output formats: HTML, Docbook XML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, reStructuredText, Markdown, RTF, groff man pages, OpenDocument XML, ODT (Open Office document), MediaWiki, GNU Texinfo, S5 slide shows.
• Unicode support.
• Optional “smart” quotes, dashes, and ellipses.
• Automatically generated tables of contents.
• Support for displaying math in HTML.
• Extensions to markdown syntax:
  • Document metadata (title, author, date).
  • Footnotes, tables, and definition lists.
  • Superscripts, subscripts, and strikeout.
  • Inline LaTeX math and LaTeX commands.
  • Markdown inside HTML blocks.
  • Enhanced ordered lists: start number and numbering style are significant.
  • Delimited (unindented) code blocks with syntax highlighting.
  • Compatibility mode to turn off syntax entensions and emulate Markdown.pl.
• Convenient wrapper scripts:
  • markdown2pdf converts directly from markdown to PDF, using pdflatex.
  • html2markdown makes it easy to produce a markdown version of any web page.
  • hsmarkdown is a drop-in replacement for Markdown.pl.
• Multi-platform: runs on Windows, MacOS X, Linux, Unix.
• Free software, released under the GPL.

To see what pandoc can do, see the demonstration page, or try pandoc on the web.

Documentation

• User’s Guide
• Demonstrations
• Man pages
  • pandoc(1)
  • markdown2pdf(1)
  • html2markdown(1)
  • hsmarkdown(1)
• Library documentation (for Haskell programmers)
• Installation instructions
• Changelog

Downloads

For installation instructions for all architectures, see INSTALL. Pandoc is in the MacPorts, Debian unstable, Ubuntu, and FreeBSD ports repositories. Abhishek Dasgupta has also contributed an Arch linux PKGBUILD script. Note that the version of pandoc in these repositories may not be the most recent.

• Source tarball
• Windows installer

Code repository

Pandoc has a publicly accesible subversion repository at Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/pandoc). To check out the latest, bleeding-edge source code:

svn checkout http://pandoc.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ pandoc

Reporting bugs

You may view existing bug reports and submit new ones at http://code.google.com/p/pandoc/issues/list.

Mailing lists

• pandoc-announce: Announcements of new releases only.
• pandoc-discuss: General discussion of pandoc.

News

• Version 1.0 release (September 13, 2008).

  • New writers for MediaWiki, GNU Texinfo (thanks to Peter Wang), OpenDocument XML (thanks to Andrea Rossato), and ODT (OpenOffice document).
  • New delimited code blocks, with optional syntax highlighting.
  • Reorganized build system: pandoc can now be built using standard Cabal tools. It can be compiled on Windows without Cygwin. The tests can also be run without perl or unix tools.
  • LaTeXMathML replaces ASCIIMathML for rendering math in HTML.
  • Support for “displayed” math.
  • Common abbreviations are now handled more intelligently, with a non-breaking space (and not a sentence-ending space) after the period.
  • Code is -Wall clean.
  • Many bug fixes and small improvements. See changelog for full details.

• Version 0.46 released (January 8, 2008).

  • Added a --sanitize-html option (and a corresponding parameter in ParserState for those using the pandoc libraries in programs). This option causes pandoc to sanitize HTML (in HTML or Markdown input) using a whitelist method. Possibly harmful HTML elements are replaced with HTML comments. This should be useful in the context of web applications, where pandoc may be used to convert user input into HTML.
  • Made -H, -A, and -B options cumulative: if they are specified multiple times, multiple files will be included.
  • Many bug fixes and small improvements. See changelog for full details.

• Version 0.45 released (December 9, 2007).

  • Many bug fixes and structural improvements. See changelog for full details.
  • Improved treatment of math. Math is now rendered using unicode by default in HTML, RTF, and DocBook output. For more accurate display of math in HTML, --gladtex, --mimetex, and --asciimathml options are provided. See the User’s Guide for details.
  • Removed support for box-style block quotes in markdown.
  • More idiomatic ConTeXt output.
  • Text wrapping in ConTeXt and LaTeX output.
  • Pandoc now correctly handles all standard line endings (CR, LF, CRLF).
  • New --no-wrap option that disables line wrapping and minimizes whitespace in HTML output.
  • Build process is now compatible with both GHC 6.8 and GHC 6.6. GHC and GHC_PKG environment variables may be used to specify which version of the compiler to use, when multiple versions are installed.

Disclaimer

Pandoc carries no warranties of any kind.