Converting markdown to pdf with pandoc

• About
• Installation
• Converting
• Example md to pdf
• Explaining the example input file
• Generate Presentations with pandoc

About

With the linux commandline tool pandoc you can easily generate a nice looking PDF file from any other format you want.
I personally write my notes in markdown, but converting them is always a pain if someone needs them. With pandoc you can easily convert any markdown file to pdf in mere seconds from your commandline.

Installation

For windows users there exists a .msi installer on https://pandoc.org/installing.html.
For linux users you can run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex fonts-liberation
wget https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/download/2.16.2/pandoc-2.16.2-1-amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i pandoc-2.16.2-1-amd64.deb

Converting

Converting files is really easy.

pandoc workshopdoku.md -o workshop.html

pandoc workshopdoku.txt --pdf-engine=xelatex -o workshop.pdf

Example md to pdf

The example file, which is the source of this convertion, can be downloaded here.
To convert it the following command is used:

pandoc pandoc_md.txt --pdf-engine=xelatex -o pandoc_pdf.pdf

Explaining the example input file

This is the full input file. Every // after a line means it's a comment about what this line does.

---
title: Example Pandoc Document
author: Me, Myself and I
date: 10.11.2021
toc: true   // If a "Table of content" should be generated
numbersections: true // If the headings should be numbered, e.g. "1.2 Header"
geometry: margin=3cm // The gap between text and paper-edge
urlcolor: blue
mainfont: LiberationSans
header-includes: |
    \usepackage{fancyhdr}
    \pagestyle{fancy}
    \lfoot{Generated with pandoc} // Left foot note
    \rfoot{Seite \thepage} // Right foot note
---

\newpage // Makes the text after this appear on a new page
// The Heading above will generate a "Table of Content"
// This newpage sperates content from table of content


# Header 1

## Header 2

This is content. Now an image:

![Utage from Arknights](test.png "test.png image at 50% width"){ width=50% }



The next Heading will be on the next page because i write a \\newpage after this sentence.

\newpage

# Header 3
You can do all things markdown provides, like _italic_ and **bold** and code with 4 spaces

    echo "Hello World"
    Hello World

Now comes a "list of figures" with \\listoffigures:

\listoffigures

Generate presentations with pandoc

With pandoc you can also generate powerpoint-like web presentations from a text file.
There are multiple designs, the commands are:

pandoc -s --mathml -i -t dzslides SLIDES -o example16a.html

pandoc -s --webtex -i -t slidy SLIDES -o example16b.html

pandoc -s --mathjax -i -t revealjs SLIDES -o example16d.html

---
title: Example
--background-image: https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/7b/fe/7bfed13e0c310bc5fb1de167ffe564bc.jpg
title-slide-attributes:
    data-background-image: https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/70/53/7053e91ecc3930e12131300b42d2ae64.jpg
    data-background-size: contain
---

# Slide One

- Press s to open the presenter view in a popup window
- There will be notes there if you are on this slide

::: notes

This is my note.

- It can contain Markdown
- like this list

:::

# Slide Two

Pandoc is:

- Easy to generate
- Can run in every browser
- No lag or delay

# Slide Three

Now a table:

:::::::::::::: {.columns}
::: {.column width="40%"}
Money  
Time
:::
::: {.column width="60%"}
Not much  
Even less
:::
::::::::::::::

# Conclusion

Pandoc is awesome!

. . .

Thanks for listening! 

pandoc -s --mathjax -i -t revealjs pandoc_slides.txt -o pandoc_slides.html