| name | cli-pandoc |
| description | Covers effective use of Pandoc for converting between document formats including Markdown, HTML, DOCX, PDF, EPUB, LaTeX, and dozens more. Activates when the user wants to convert documents, generate PDFs from Markdown, create slide decks, manage citations, or batch-convert between wiki/documentation formats.
|
Pandoc — Universal Document Converter
Repo: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc
Convert between Markdown, HTML, DOCX, PDF, EPUB, LaTeX, reStructuredText,
and 40+ other formats. The definitive tool for document format conversion.
When to Activate
Manual triggers:
- "Convert Markdown to PDF/DOCX/HTML"
- "Generate a PDF from my notes"
- "Create slides from Markdown"
- "Convert between document formats"
- "Add a table of contents to this doc"
Auto-detect triggers:
- User has a
.md file and needs a different format for sharing
- User is writing documentation and needs it in multiple output formats
- User mentions citations, bibliographies, or academic writing
- User wants to convert wiki/Confluence/Notion exports to another format
Key Commands
Basic Conversion
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf
pandoc input.md -o output.docx
pandoc input.md -o output.html
pandoc input.html -o output.md
pandoc input.docx -o output.md
pandoc input.md -o output.epub
pandoc input.md -o output.tex
Specify Formats Explicitly (-f / -t)
pandoc -f markdown -t html input.md -o output.html
pandoc -f docx -t markdown input.docx -o output.md
pandoc -f rst -t markdown input.rst -o output.md
pandoc -f mediawiki -t markdown input.wiki -o output.md
pandoc -f org -t markdown input.org -o output.md
List All Supported Formats
pandoc --list-input-formats
pandoc --list-output-formats
HTML Output
pandoc input.md -o output.html --standalone
pandoc input.md -o output.html --standalone --css=style.css
pandoc input.md -o output.html --standalone \
--variable=css:"body { font-family: sans-serif; max-width: 800px; margin: auto; }"
pandoc input.md -o output.html --standalone --self-contained
PDF Output
PDF generation requires a PDF engine. Pandoc supports several:
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --pdf-engine=pdflatex
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --pdf-engine=xelatex
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --pdf-engine=lualatex
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --pdf-engine=wkhtmltopdf
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --pdf-engine=weasyprint
PDF Page and Margin Settings
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf \
-V geometry:margin=1in \
-V geometry:papersize=letter \
-V fontsize=12pt \
-V mainfont="Georgia"
DOCX Output
pandoc input.md -o output.docx
pandoc input.md -o output.docx --reference-doc=template.docx
pandoc --print-default-data-file reference.docx > template.docx
Table of Contents
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --toc
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --toc --toc-depth=2
pandoc input.md -o output.html --toc --standalone
pandoc input.md -o output.docx --toc
Metadata
Command-line Metadata
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf \
--metadata title="My Document" \
--metadata author="Jane Smith" \
--metadata date="2024-03-28"
YAML Metadata Block (in Markdown file)
---
title: "My Document"
author: "Jane Smith"
date: "2024-03-28"
abstract: "This document covers..."
lang: "en"
---
# Introduction
...
Metadata File
pandoc input.md --metadata-file=meta.yaml -o output.pdf
Templates
Use a Custom Template
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf --template=mytemplate.tex
pandoc input.md -o output.html --template=mytemplate.html
Print Default Template (to customize)
pandoc --print-default-template=latex > template.tex
pandoc --print-default-template=html5 > template.html
Template Variables
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf \
--variable=documentclass:article \
--variable=classoption:twocolumn \
--variable=fontfamily:palatino
Slide Decks
reveal.js (HTML slides)
pandoc input.md -o slides.html -t revealjs --standalone
pandoc input.md -o slides.html -t revealjs \
--variable=theme:moon \
--variable=transition:slide \
--standalone
pandoc input.md -o slides.html -t revealjs --self-contained
Beamer (PDF slides via LaTeX)
pandoc input.md -o slides.pdf -t beamer
pandoc input.md -o slides.pdf -t beamer \
--variable=theme:metropolis \
--variable=colortheme:crane
Slide Structure in Markdown
# Section Title (becomes a section divider)
## Slide Title
Content for this slide.
- Bullet one
- Bullet two
## Next Slide
---
(Horizontal rule creates a new slide without a title)
Citations and Bibliographies
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf \
--bibliography=references.bib \
--csl=apa.csl \
--citeproc
Lua Filters
Filters let you transform the document AST programmatically.
pandoc input.md -o output.html --lua-filter=my-filter.lua
Example Lua Filter (make all links open in new tab)
function Link(el)
el.attributes.target = "_blank"
return el
end
pandoc input.md -o output.html --lua-filter=newwindow.lua --standalone
Advanced Patterns
Batch Conversion with fd
fd -e md | while read f; do
pandoc "$f" -o "${f%.md}.html" --standalone
done
fd -e md . docs/ | while read f; do
pandoc "$f" -o "pdf/$(basename ${f%.md}).pdf" --pdf-engine=xelatex
done
Concatenate Multiple Files
pandoc chapter1.md chapter2.md chapter3.md -o book.pdf --toc
cat *.md | pandoc -f markdown -o combined.pdf
Include Files (Markdown Extension)
!include chapter1.md
!include chapter2.md
pandoc --lua-filter=include-files.lua input.md -o output.pdf
Convert Confluence / MediaWiki
pandoc -f html -t markdown confluence-export.html -o output.md
pandoc -f mediawiki -t gfm input.wiki -o output.md
pandoc -f org -t markdown input.org -o output.md
Professional PDF with Custom LaTeX Template
pandoc input.md -o output.pdf \
--pdf-engine=xelatex \
-V geometry:margin=1in \
-V fontsize=11pt \
-V mainfont="Palatino" \
-V monofont="JetBrains Mono" \
-V colorlinks=true \
-V linkcolor=blue \
--highlight-style=tango \
--toc
HTML to Clean Markdown (web scraping aid)
curl -s https://example.com/article | pandoc -f html -t markdown -o article.md
pandoc -f html -t markdown --wrap=none input.html -o output.md
Supported Formats Reference
| Direction | Formats |
|---|
| Read (input) | Markdown (CommonMark, GFM, MMD, Pandoc), HTML, DOCX, ODT, LaTeX, EPUB, RST, Org, MediaWiki, Textile, JATS, OPML, CSV |
| Write (output) | All of above + PDF, reveal.js, Beamer, DokuWiki, Jira, ICML (InDesign), Jupyter, man page, PowerPoint (PPTX) |
Markdown Flavor Options
pandoc -f commonmark
pandoc -f gfm
pandoc -f markdown
pandoc -f markdown-smart
Chaining with Other Skills
- cli-imagemagick: Use ImageMagick to resize or optimize images before embedding them in Pandoc documents; convert PDF output pages to PNG with ImageMagick
- fd: Use
fd -e md to find all Markdown files in a project, then pipe into a batch Pandoc conversion loop
- cli-fzf (fzf): Use
fd -e md | fzf to interactively select a document before running pandoc on it
- jq/yq: Use
yq to manipulate YAML metadata blocks before passing documents to Pandoc; use jq to work with Pandoc's JSON AST format (pandoc -t json)
