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, RTF, DocBook XML, groff man, 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, 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.
  • Compatibility mode to turn off syntax entensions and emulate Markdown.pl.
• Convenient wrapper scripts:
  • html2markdown makes it easy to produce a markdown version of any web page.
  • markdown2pdf converts markdown to PDF in one step.
  • 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. Note that pandoc is in the MacPorts, Debian unstable, and FreeBSD ports repositories. Abhishek Dasgupta has also contributed an Arch linux PKGBUILD script. Starting with release 8.04 (“Hardy Heron”), pandoc will be included in Ubuntu linux.

• Source tarball
• Windows binary package

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 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.

• Version 0.44 released (September 3, 2007).

  • Fixed bug in HTML writer: when --toc was used, anchors were put around headers, which is invalid XHTML (block content within inline element). Now the anchors are put inside the header tags. Resolves Issue #23.
  • Changed build process to compile Setup.hs instead of using runhaskell, which throws an error on platforms where GHC is “not built for interactive use”. Closes Debian #440668.

• Version 0.43 released (September 2, 2007).

  • HUGE increase in performance: markdown is parsed five times faster than with 0.42 on large benchmark files.
  • Prettyprinting library used in LaTeX writer, so that LaTeX output is wrapped and intelligently indented.
  • Fixed bugs in LaTeX ordered lists and LaTeX command and environment parsers.
  • Blank lines are no longer required after code blocks.
  • Fixed inline code parsing so that it uses the method of Markdown.pl: the delimiters are blocks of N ` characters not followed by another ` character. For example: ` h ``` i ` -> <code>h ``` i</code>.
  • Markdown writer escapes paragraphs that begin like list items.
  • MacPorts Portfile now installs library as well as executable.
  • Added pandocwiki demonstration to the website.

Disclaimer

This is an early, “alpha” release. It carries no warranties of any kind.