md-to-pdf

type	skill
lifecycle	stable
inheritance	inheritable
name	md-to-pdf
description	Convert Markdown to PDF via Pandoc with two rendering engines.
tier	standard
applyTo	**/*pdf*
currency	2026-04-30T00:00:00.000Z
lastReviewed	2026-04-30T00:00:00.000Z

md-to-pdf

Convert Markdown to PDF via Pandoc with two rendering engines.

When to Use

• Reports, manuscripts, and printable documentation
• Documents needing high-fidelity typography (LaTeX engine)
• Faster turnaround drafts (HTML/wkhtmltopdf engine)

What's Here

md-to-pdf.cjs — Node script that wraps Pandoc.

External Dependencies

• node (≥ 16)
• pandoc (≥ 3.0) on PATH
• One of:
  • lualatex / TeX Live (high-quality typography, slower)
  • wkhtmltopdf (HTML route, faster, less precise)

Usage

node md-to-pdf.cjs input.md
node md-to-pdf.cjs input.md --engine lualatex
node md-to-pdf.cjs input.md --engine wkhtmltopdf
node md-to-pdf.cjs input.md --output custom.pdf

The script auto-detects available engines if --engine is omitted, preferring lualatex when present.

Frontmatter Hooks

YAML frontmatter is forwarded to Pandoc. Useful keys:

---
title: My Document
author: Your Name
date: 2026-04-28
toc: true
geometry: margin=1in
---

Notes

• Mermaid diagrams are pre-rendered to PNG and embedded
• Code blocks get syntax highlighting via Pandoc's --highlight-style
• Round-trip from md-to-html → wkhtmltopdf is roughly equivalent to the HTML engine