Pandoc’s markdown
Pandoc understands an extended and slightly revised version of John
Gruber’s markdown syntax.
This document explains the syntax, noting differences from standard
markdown. Except where noted, these differences can be suppressed by
specifying the --strict command-line option.
Philosophy
Markdown is designed to be easy to write, and, even more importantly,
easy to read:
A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain
text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting
instructions. ' John
Gruber
This principle has guided pandoc’s decisions in finding syntax for
tables, footnotes, and other extensions.
There is, however, one respect in which pandoc’s aims are different
from the original aims of markdown. Whereas markdown was originally
designed with HTML generation in mind, pandoc is designed for multiple
output formats. Thus, while pandoc allows the embedding of raw HTML, it
discourages it, and provides other, non-HTMLish ways of representing
important document elements like definition lists, tables, mathematics,
and footnotes.
Paragraphs
A paragraph is one or more lines of text followed by one or more
blank line. Newlines are treated as spaces, so you can reflow your
paragraphs as you like. If you need a hard line break, put two or more
spaces at the end of a line, or type a backslash followed by a
newline.
There are two kinds of headers, Setext and atx.
A setext-style header is a line of text “underlined” with a row of
= signs (for a level one header) of - signs
(for a level two header):
A level-one header
==================
A level-two header
------------------
The header text can contain inline formatting, such as emphasis (see
Inline formatting, below).
An Atx-style header consists of one to six # signs and a
line of text, optionally followed by any number of # signs.
The number of # signs at the beginning of the line is the
header level:
## A level-two header
As with setext-style headers, the header text can contain
formatting:
# A level-one header with a [link](/url) and *emphasis*
Standard markdown syntax does not require a blank line before a
header. Pandoc does require this (except, of course, at the beginning of
the document). The reason for the requirement is that it is all too easy
for a # to end up at the beginning of a line by accident
(perhaps through line wrapping). Consider, for example:
I like several of their flavors of ice cream:
#22, for example, and #5.
Header identifiers
in HTML, LaTeX, and ConTeXt
Pandoc extension.
Each header element in pandoc’s HTML and ConTeXt output is given a
unique identifier. This identifier is based on the text of the header.
To derive the identifier from the header text,
- Remove all formatting, links, etc.
- Remove all punctuation, except underscores, hyphens, and
periods.
- Replace all spaces and newlines with hyphens.
- Convert all alphabetic characters to lowercase.
- Remove everything up to the first letter (identifiers may not begin
with a number or punctuation mark).
- If nothing is left after this, use the identifier
section.
Thus, for example,
| Header identifiers in HTML |
header-identifiers-in-html |
| Dogs?'in my house? |
dogs--in-my-house |
| HTML, S5, or RTF? |
html-s5-or-rtf |
| 3. Applications |
applications |
| 33 |
section |
These rules should, in most cases, allow one to determine the
identifier from the header text. The exception is when several headers
have the same text; in this case, the first will get an identifier as
described above; the second will get the same identifier with
-1 appended; the third with -2; and so on.
These identifiers are used to provide link targets in the table of
contents generated by the --toc|--table-of-contents option.
They also make it easy to provide links from one section of a document
to another. A link to this section, for example, might look like
this:
See the section on
[header identifiers](#header-identifiers-in-html).
Note, however, that this method of providing links to sections works
only in HTML, LaTeX, and ConTeXt formats.
If the --section-divs option is specified, then each
section will be wrapped in a div (or a
section, if --html5 was specified), and the
identifier will be attached to the enclosing <div>
(or <section>) tag rather than the header itself.
This allows entire sections to be manipulated using javascript or
treated differently in CSS.
Block quotations
Markdown uses email conventions for quoting blocks of text. A block
quotation is one or more paragraphs or other block elements (such as
lists or headers), with each line preceded by a >
character and a space. (The > need not start at the left
margin, but it should not be indented more than three spaces.)
> This is a block quote. This
> paragraph has two lines.
>
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
> 2. Second item.
A “lazy” form, which requires the > character only on
the first line of each block, is also allowed:
> This is a block quote. This
paragraph has two lines.
> 1. This is a list inside a block quote.
2. Second item.
Among the block elements that can be contained in a block quote are
other block quotes. That is, block quotes can be nested:
> This is a block quote.
>
> > A block quote within a block quote.
Standard markdown syntax does not require a blank line before a block
quote. Pandoc does require this (except, of course, at the beginning of
the document). The reason for the requirement is that it is all too easy
for a > to end up at the beginning of a line by accident
(perhaps through line wrapping). So, unless --strict is
used, the following does not produce a nested block quote in pandoc:
> This is a block quote.
>> Nested.
Verbatim (code) blocks
Indented code blocks
A block of text indented four spaces (or one tab) is treated as
verbatim text: that is, special characters do not trigger special
formatting, and all spaces and line breaks are preserved. For
example,
if (a > 3) {
moveShip(5 * gravity, DOWN);
}
The initial (four space or one tab) indentation is not considered
part of the verbatim text, and is removed in the output.
Note: blank lines in the verbatim text need not begin with four
spaces.
Delimited code blocks
Pandoc extension.
In addition to standard indented code blocks, Pandoc supports
delimited code blocks. These begin with a row of three or more
tildes (~) or backticks (`) and end with a row
of tildes or backticks that must be at least as long as the starting
row. Everything between these lines is treated as code. No indentation
is necessary:
~~~~~~~
if (a > 3) {
moveShip(5 * gravity, DOWN);
}
~~~~~~~
Like regular code blocks, delimited code blocks must be separated
from surrounding text by blank lines.
If the code itself contains a row of tildes or backticks, just use a
longer row of tildes or backticks at the start and end:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
code including tildes
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Optionally, you may attach attributes to the code block using this
syntax:
~~~~ {#mycode .haskell .numberLines startFrom="100"}
qsort [] = []
qsort (x:xs) = qsort (filter (< x) xs) ++ [x] ++
qsort (filter (>= x) xs)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here mycode is an identifier, haskell and
numberLines are classes, and startFrom is an
attribute with value 100. Some output formats can use this
information to do syntax highlighting. Currently, the only output
formats that uses this information are HTML and LaTeX. If highlighting
is supported for your output format and language, then the code block
above will appear highlighted, with numbered lines. (To see which
languages are supported, do pandoc --version.) Otherwise,
the code block above will appear as follows:
<pre id="mycode" class="haskell numberLines" startFrom="100">
<code>
...
</code>
</pre>
A shortcut form can also be used for specifying the language of the
code block:
```haskell
qsort [] = []
```
This is equivalent to:
``` {.haskell}
qsort [] = []
```
To prevent all highlighting, use the --no-highlight
flag. To set the highlighting style, use
--highlight-style.
Lists
Bullet lists
A bullet list is a list of bulleted list items. A bulleted list item
begins with a bullet (*, +, or
-). Here is a simple example:
* one
* two
* three
This will produce a “compact” list. If you want a “loose” list, in
which each item is formatted as a paragraph, put spaces between the
items:
* one
* two
* three
The bullets need not be flush with the left margin; they may be
indented one, two, or three spaces. The bullet must be followed by
whitespace.
List items look best if subsequent lines are flush with the first
line (after the bullet):
* here is my first
list item.
* and my second.
But markdown also allows a “lazy” format:
* here is my first
list item.
* and my second.
The four-space rule
A list item may contain multiple paragraphs and other block-level
content. However, subsequent paragraphs must be preceded by a blank line
and indented four spaces or a tab. The list will look better if the
first paragraph is aligned with the rest:
* First paragraph.
Continued.
* Second paragraph. With a code block, which must be indented
eight spaces:
{ code }
List items may include other lists. In this case the preceding blank
line is optional. The nested list must be indented four spaces or one
tab:
* fruits
+ apples
- macintosh
- red delicious
+ pears
+ peaches
* vegetables
+ brocolli
+ chard
As noted above, markdown allows you to write list items “lazily,”
instead of indenting continuation lines. However, if there are multiple
paragraphs or other blocks in a list item, the first line of each must
be indented.
+ A lazy, lazy, list
item.
+ Another one; this looks
bad but is legal.
Second paragraph of second
list item.
Note: Although the four-space rule for continuation
paragraphs comes from the official markdown
syntax guide, the reference implementation,
Markdown.pl, does not follow it. So pandoc will give
different results than Markdown.pl when authors have
indented continuation paragraphs fewer than four spaces.
The markdown
syntax guide is not explicit whether the four-space rule applies to
all block-level content in a list item; it only mentions
paragraphs and code blocks. But it implies that the rule applies to all
block-level content (including nested lists), and pandoc interprets it
that way.
Ordered lists
Ordered lists work just like bulleted lists, except that the items
begin with enumerators rather than bullets.
In standard markdown, enumerators are decimal numbers followed by a
period and a space. The numbers themselves are ignored, so there is no
difference between this list:
1. one
2. two
3. three
and this one:
5. one
7. two
1. three
Pandoc extension.
Unlike standard markdown, Pandoc allows ordered list items to be
marked with uppercase and lowercase letters and roman numerals, in
addition to arabic numerals. List markers may be enclosed in parentheses
or followed by a single right-parentheses or period. They must be
separated from the text that follows by at least one space, and, if the
list marker is a capital letter with a period, by at least two spaces.
Pandoc also pays attention to the type of list marker used, and to
the starting number, and both of these are preserved where possible in
the output format. Thus, the following yields a list with numbers
followed by a single parenthesis, starting with 9, and a sublist with
lowercase roman numerals:
9) Ninth
10) Tenth
11) Eleventh
i. subone
ii. subtwo
iii. subthree
Pandoc will start a new list each time a different type of list
marker is used. So, the following will create three lists:
(2) Two
(5) Three
1. Four
* Five
If default list markers are desired, use #.:
#. one
#. two
#. three
Definition lists
Pandoc extension.
Pandoc supports definition lists, using a syntax inspired by PHP Markdown
Extra and reStructuredText:
Term 1
: Definition 1
Term 2 with *inline markup*
: Definition 2
{ some code, part of Definition 2 }
Third paragraph of definition 2.
Each term must fit on one line, which may optionally be followed by a
blank line, and must be followed by one or more definitions. A
definition begins with a colon or tilde, which may be indented one or
two spaces. The body of the definition (including the first line, aside
from the colon or tilde) should be indented four spaces. A term may have
multiple definitions, and each definition may consist of one or more
block elements (paragraph, code block, list, etc.), each indented four
spaces or one tab stop.
If you leave space after the definition (as in the example above),
the blocks of the definitions will be considered paragraphs. In some
output formats, this will mean greater spacing between term/definition
pairs. For a compact definition list, do not leave space between the
definition and the next term:
Term 1
~ Definition 1
Term 2
~ Definition 2a
~ Definition 2b
Numbered example lists
Pandoc extension.
The special list marker @ can be used for sequentially
numbered examples. The first list item with a @ marker will
be numbered ‘1’, the next ‘2’, and so on, throughout the document. The
numbered examples need not occur in a single list; each new list using
@ will take up where the last stopped. So, for example:
(@) My first example will be numbered (1).
(@) My second example will be numbered (2).
Explanation of examples.
(@) My third example will be numbered (3).
Numbered examples can be labeled and referred to elsewhere in the
document:
(@good) This is a good example.
As (@good) illustrates, ...
The label can be any string of alphanumeric characters, underscores,
or hyphens.
Compact and loose lists
Pandoc behaves differently from Markdown.pl on some
“edge cases” involving lists. Consider this source:
+ First
+ Second:
- Fee
- Fie
- Foe
+ Third
Pandoc transforms this into a “compact list” (with no
<p> tags around “First”, “Second”, or “Third”), while
markdown puts <p> tags around “Second” and “Third”
(but not “First”), because of the blank space around “Third”. Pandoc
follows a simple rule: if the text is followed by a blank line, it is
treated as a paragraph. Since “Second” is followed by a list, and not a
blank line, it isn’t treated as a paragraph. The fact that the list is
followed by a blank line is irrelevant. (Note: Pandoc works this way
even when the --strict option is specified. This behavior
is consistent with the official markdown syntax description, even though
it is different from that of Markdown.pl.)
Ending a list
What if you want to put an indented code block after a list?
- item one
- item two
{ my code block }
Trouble! Here pandoc (like other markdown implementations) will treat
{ my code block } as the second paragraph of item two, and
not as a code block.
To “cut off” the list after item two, you can insert some
non-indented content, like an HTML comment, which won’t produce visible
output in any format:
- item one
- item two
<!-- end of list -->
{ my code block }
You can use the same trick if you want two consecutive lists instead
of one big list:
1. one
2. two
3. three
<!-- -->
1. uno
2. dos
3. tres
Horizontal rules
A line containing a row of three or more *,
-, or _ characters (optionally separated by
spaces) produces a horizontal rule:
* * * *
---------------
Tables
Pandoc extension.
Three kinds of tables may be used. All three kinds presuppose the use
of a fixed-width font, such as Courier.
Simple tables look like this:
Right Left Center Default
------- ------ ---------- -------
12 12 12 12
123 123 123 123
1 1 1 1
Table: Demonstration of simple table syntax.
The headers and table rows must each fit on one line. Column
alignments are determined by the position of the header text relative to
the dashed line below it:
- If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the right side
but extends beyond it on the left, the column is right-aligned.
- If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the left side
but extends beyond it on the right, the column is left-aligned.
- If the dashed line extends beyond the header text on both sides, the
column is centered.
- If the dashed line is flush with the header text on both sides, the
default alignment is used (in most cases, this will be left).
The table must end with a blank line, or a line of dashes followed by
a blank line. A caption may optionally be provided (as illustrated in
the example above). A caption is a paragraph beginning with the string
Table: (or just :), which will be stripped
off. It may appear either before or after the table.
The column headers may be omitted, provided a dashed line is used to
end the table. For example:
------- ------ ---------- -------
12 12 12 12
123 123 123 123
1 1 1 1
------- ------ ---------- -------
When headers are omitted, column alignments are determined on the
basis of the first line of the table body. So, in the tables above, the
columns would be right, left, center, and right aligned,
respectively.
Multiline tables allow headers and table rows to
span multiple lines of text (but cells that span multiple columns or
rows of the table are not supported). Here is an example:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Centered Default Right Left
Header Aligned Aligned Aligned
----------- ------- --------------- -------------------------
First row 12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
Second row 5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
rows.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Table: Here's the caption. It, too, may span
multiple lines.
These work like simple tables, but with the following
differences:
- They must begin with a row of dashes, before the header text (unless
the headers are omitted).
- They must end with a row of dashes, then a blank line.
- The rows must be separated by blank lines.
In multiline tables, the table parser pays attention to the widths of
the columns, and the writers try to reproduce these relative widths in
the output. So, if you find that one of the columns is too narrow in the
output, try widening it in the markdown source.
Headers may be omitted in multiline tables as well as simple
tables:
----------- ------- --------------- -------------------------
First row 12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
Second row 5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
rows.
-------------------------------------------------------------
: Here's a multiline table without headers.
It is possible for a multiline table to have just one row, but the
row should be followed by a blank line (and then the row of dashes that
ends the table), or the table may be interpreted as a simple table.
Grid tables look like this:
: Sample grid table.
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Fruit | Price | Advantages |
+===============+===============+====================+
| Bananas | $1.34 | - built-in wrapper |
| | | - bright color |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Oranges | $2.10 | - cures scurvy |
| | | - tasty |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
The row of =s separates the header from the table body,
and can be omitted for a headerless table. The cells of grid tables may
contain arbitrary block elements (multiple paragraphs, code blocks,
lists, etc.). Alignments are not supported, nor are cells that span
multiple columns or rows. Grid tables can be created easily using Emacs table mode.
Title block
Pandoc extension.
If the file begins with a title block
% title
% author(s) (separated by semicolons)
% date
it will be parsed as bibliographic information, not regular text. (It
will be used, for example, in the title of standalone LaTeX or HTML
output.) The block may contain just a title, a title and an author, or
all three elements. If you want to include an author but no title, or a
title and a date but no author, you need a blank line:
%
% Author
% My title
%
% June 15, 2006
The title may occupy multiple lines, but continuation lines must
begin with leading space, thus:
% My title
on multiple lines
If a document has multiple authors, the authors may be put on
separate lines with leading space, or separated by semicolons, or both.
So, all of the following are equivalent:
% Author One
Author Two
% Author One; Author Two
% Author One;
Author Two
The date must fit on one line.
All three metadata fields may contain standard inline formatting
(italics, links, footnotes, etc.).
Title blocks will always be parsed, but they will affect the output
only when the --standalone (-s) option is
chosen. In HTML output, titles will appear twice: once in the document
head ' this is the title that will appear at the top of the window in a
browser ' and once at the beginning of the document body. The title in
the document head can have an optional prefix attached
(--title-prefix or -T option). The title in
the body appears as an H1 element with class “title”, so it can be
suppressed or reformatted with CSS. If a title prefix is specified with
-T and no title block appears in the document, the title
prefix will be used by itself as the HTML title.
The man page writer extracts a title, man page section number, and
other header and footer information from the title line. The title is
assumed to be the first word on the title line, which may optionally end
with a (single-digit) section number in parentheses. (There should be no
space between the title and the parentheses.) Anything after this is
assumed to be additional footer and header text. A single pipe character
(|) should be used to separate the footer text from the
header text. Thus,
% PANDOC(1)
will yield a man page with the title PANDOC and section
1.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals
will also have “Pandoc User Manuals” in the footer.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals | Version 4.0
will also have “Version 4.0” in the header.
Backslash escapes
Except inside a code block or inline code, any punctuation or space
character preceded by a backslash will be treated literally, even if it
would normally indicate formatting. Thus, for example, if one writes
*\*hello\**
one will get
<em>*hello*</em>
instead of
<strong>hello</strong>
This rule is easier to remember than standard markdown’s rule, which
allows only the following characters to be backslash-escaped:
\`*_{}[]()>#+-.!
(However, if the --strict option is supplied, the
standard markdown rule will be used.)
A backslash-escaped space is parsed as a nonbreaking space. It will
appear in TeX output as ~ and in HTML and XML as
\  or \ .
A backslash-escaped newline (i.e. a backslash occurring at the end of
a line) is parsed as a hard line break. It will appear in TeX output as
\\ and in HTML as <br />. This is a nice
alternative to markdown’s “invisible” way of indicating hard line breaks
using two trailing spaces on a line.
Backslash escapes do not work in verbatim contexts.
Smart punctuation
Pandoc extension.
If the --smart option is specified, pandoc will produce
typographically correct output, converting straight quotes to curly
quotes, --- to em-dashes, -- to en-dashes, and
... to ellipses. Nonbreaking spaces are inserted after
certain abbreviations, such as “Mr.”
Note: if your LaTeX template uses the csquotes package,
pandoc will detect automatically this and use \enquote{...}
for quoted text.
Emphasis
To emphasize some text, surround it with *s or
_, like this:
This text is _emphasized with underscores_, and this
is *emphasized with asterisks*.
Double * or _ produces strong
emphasis:
This is **strong emphasis** and __with underscores__.
A * or _ character surrounded by spaces, or
backslash-escaped, will not trigger emphasis:
This is * not emphasized *, and \*neither is this\*.
Because _ is sometimes used inside words and
identifiers, pandoc does not interpret a _ surrounded by
alphanumeric characters as an emphasis marker. If you want to emphasize
just part of a word, use *:
feas*ible*, not feas*able*.
Strikeout
Pandoc extension.
To strikeout a section of text with a horizontal line, begin and end
it with ~~. Thus, for example,
This ~~is deleted text.~~
Superscripts and subscripts
Pandoc extension.
Superscripts may be written by surrounding the superscripted text by
^ characters; subscripts may be written by surrounding the
subscripted text by ~ characters. Thus, for example,
H~2~O is a liquid. 2^10^ is 1024.
If the superscripted or subscripted text contains spaces, these
spaces must be escaped with backslashes. (This is to prevent accidental
superscripting and subscripting through the ordinary use of
~ and ^.) Thus, if you want the letter P with
‘a cat’ in subscripts, use P~a\ cat~, not
P~a cat~.
Verbatim
To make a short span of text verbatim, put it inside backticks:
What is the difference between `>>=` and `>>`?
If the verbatim text includes a backtick, use double backticks:
Here is a literal backtick `` ` ``.
(The spaces after the opening backticks and before the closing
backticks will be ignored.)
The general rule is that a verbatim span starts with a string of
consecutive backticks (optionally followed by a space) and ends with a
string of the same number of backticks (optionally preceded by a
space).
Note that backslash-escapes (and other markdown constructs) do not
work in verbatim contexts:
This is a backslash followed by an asterisk: `\*`.
Attributes can be attached to verbatim text, just as with delimited code blocks:
`<$>`{.haskell}
Math
Pandoc extension.
Anything between two $ characters will be treated as TeX
math. The opening $ must have a character immediately to
its right, while the closing $ must have a character
immediately to its left. Thus, $20,000 and $30,000 won’t
parse as math. If for some reason you need to enclose text in literal
$ characters, backslash-escape them and they won’t be
treated as math delimiters.
TeX math will be printed in all output formats. How it is rendered
depends on the output format:
- Markdown, LaTeX, Org-Mode, ConTeXt
-
It will appear verbatim between
$ characters.
- reStructuredText
-
It will be rendered using an interpreted text role
:math:,
as described here.
- AsciiDoc
-
It will be rendered as
latexmath:[...].
- Texinfo
-
It will be rendered inside a
@math command.
- groff man
-
It will be rendered verbatim without
$’s.
- MediaWiki
-
It will be rendered inside
<math> tags.
- Textile
-
It will be rendered inside
<span class="math"> tags.
- RTF, OpenDocument, ODT
-
It will be rendered, if possible, using unicode characters, and will
otherwise appear verbatim.
- Docbook
-
If the
--mathml flag is used, it will be rendered using
mathml in an inlineequation or
informalequation tag. Otherwise it will be rendered, if
possible, using unicode characters.
- Docx
-
It will be rendered using OMML math markup.
- HTML, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, S5, EPUB
-
The way math is rendered in HTML will depend on the command-line
options selected:
The default is to render TeX math as far as possible using
unicode characters, as with RTF, DocBook, and OpenDocument output.
Formulas are put inside a span with
class="math", so that they may be styled differently from
the surrounding text if needed.
If the --latexmathml option is used, TeX math will
be displayed between $ or $$ characters and put in
<span> tags with class LaTeX. The LaTeXMathML script will be
used to render it as formulas. (This trick does not work in all
browsers, but it works in Firefox. In browsers that do not support
LaTeXMathML, TeX math will appear verbatim between $
characters.)
If the --jsmath option is used, TeX math will be put
inside <span> tags (for inline math) or
<div> tags (for display math) with class
math. The jsMath script will be
used to render it.
If the --mimetex option is used, the mimeTeX CGI script will
be called to generate images for each TeX formula. This should work in
all browsers. The --mimetex option takes an optional URL as
argument. If no URL is specified, it will be assumed that the mimeTeX
CGI script is at /cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi.
If the --gladtex option is used, TeX formulas will
be enclosed in <eq> tags in the HTML output. The
resulting htex file may then be processed by gladTeX,
which will produce image files for each formula and an html
file with links to these images. So, the procedure is:
pandoc -s --gladtex myfile.txt -o myfile.htex
gladtex -d myfile-images myfile.htex
# produces myfile.html and images in myfile-images
If the --webtex option is used, TeX formulas will be
converted to <img> tags that link to an external
script that converts formulas to images. The formula will be URL-encoded
and concatenated with the URL provided. If no URL is specified, the
Google Chart API will be used
(http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=tx&chl=).
Raw HTML
Markdown allows you to insert raw HTML (or DocBook) anywhere in a
document (except verbatim contexts, where <,
>, and & are interpreted
literally).
The raw HTML is passed through unchanged in HTML, S5, Slidy,
Slideous, DZSlides, EPUB, Markdown, and Textile output, and suppressed
in other formats.
Pandoc extension.
Standard markdown allows you to include HTML “blocks”: blocks of HTML
between balanced tags that are separated from the surrounding text with
blank lines, and start and end at the left margin. Within these blocks,
everything is interpreted as HTML, not markdown; so (for example),
* does not signify emphasis.
Pandoc behaves this way when --strict is specified; but
by default, pandoc interprets material between HTML block tags as
markdown. Thus, for example, Pandoc will turn
<table>
<tr>
<td>*one*</td>
<td>[a link](http://google.com)</td>
</tr>
</table>
into
<table>
<tr>
<td><em>one</em></td>
<td><a href="http://google.com">a link</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
whereas Markdown.pl will preserve it as is.
There is one exception to this rule: text between
<script> and <style> tags is not
interpreted as markdown.
This departure from standard markdown should make it easier to mix
markdown with HTML block elements. For example, one can surround a block
of markdown text with <div> tags without preventing
it from being interpreted as markdown.
Raw TeX
Pandoc extension.
In addition to raw HTML, pandoc allows raw LaTeX, TeX, and ConTeXt to
be included in a document. Inline TeX commands will be preserved and
passed unchanged to the LaTeX and ConTeXt writers. Thus, for example,
you can use LaTeX to include BibTeX citations:
This result was proved in \cite{jones.1967}.
Note that in LaTeX environments, like
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}\hline
Age & Frequency \\ \hline
18--25 & 15 \\
26--35 & 33 \\
36--45 & 22 \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
the material between the begin and end tags will be interpreted as
raw LaTeX, not as markdown.
Inline LaTeX is ignored in output formats other than Markdown, LaTeX,
and ConTeXt.
Macros
For output formats other than LaTeX, pandoc will parse LaTeX
\newcommand and \renewcommand definitions and
apply the resulting macros to all LaTeX math. So, for example, the
following will work in all output formats, not just LaTeX:
\newcommand{\tuple}[1]{\langle #1 \rangle}
$\tuple{a, b, c}$
In LaTeX output, the \newcommand definition will simply
be passed unchanged to the output.
Links
Markdown allows links to be specified in several ways.
Automatic links
If you enclose a URL or email address in pointy brackets, it will
become a link:
<http://google.com>
<sam@green.eggs.ham>
Inline links
An inline link consists of the link text in square brackets, followed
by the URL in parentheses. (Optionally, the URL can be followed by a
link title, in quotes.)
This is an [inline link](/url), and here's [one with
a title](http://fsf.org "click here for a good time!").
There can be no space between the bracketed part and the
parenthesized part. The link text can contain formatting (such as
emphasis), but the title cannot.
Reference links
An explicit reference link has two parts, the link itself
and the link definition, which may occur elsewhere in the document
(either before or after the link).
The link consists of link text in square brackets, followed by a
label in square brackets. (There can be space between the two.) The link
definition must begin at the left margin or indented no more than three
spaces. It consists of the bracketed label, followed by a colon and a
space, followed by the URL, and optionally (after a space) a link title
either in quotes or in parentheses.
Here are some examples:
[my label 1]: /foo/bar.html "My title, optional"
[my label 2]: /foo
[my label 3]: http://fsf.org (The free software foundation)
[my label 4]: /bar#special 'A title in single quotes'
The URL may optionally be surrounded by angle brackets:
[my label 5]: <http://foo.bar.baz>
The title may go on the next line:
[my label 3]: http://fsf.org
"The free software foundation"
Note that link labels are not case sensitive. So, this will work:
Here is [my link][FOO]
[Foo]: /bar/baz
In an implicit reference link, the second pair of brackets
is empty, or omitted entirely:
See [my website][], or [my website].
[my website]: http://foo.bar.baz
Internal links
To link to another section of the same document, use the
automatically generated identifier (see Header identifiers
in HTML, LaTeX, and ConTeXt, below). For example:
See the [Introduction](#introduction).
or
See the [Introduction].
[Introduction]: #introduction
Internal links are currently supported for HTML formats (including
HTML slide shows and EPUB), LaTeX, and ConTeXt.
Images
A link immediately preceded by a ! will be treated as an
image. The link text will be used as the image’s alt text:
![movie reel]
[movie reel]: movie.png
Pictures with captions
Pandoc extension.
An image occurring by itself in a paragraph will be rendered as a
figure with a caption. (In LaTeX, a figure environment will
be used; in HTML, the image will be placed in a div with
class figure, together with a caption in a p
with class caption.) The image’s alt text will be used as
the caption.
If you just want a regular inline image, just make sure it is not the
only thing in the paragraph. One way to do this is to insert a
nonbreaking space after the image:
\
Pandoc extension.
Pandoc’s markdown allows footnotes, using the following syntax:
Here is a footnote reference,[^1] and another.[^longnote]
[^1]: Here is the footnote.
[^longnote]: Here's one with multiple blocks.
Subsequent paragraphs are indented to show that they
belong to the previous footnote.
{ some.code }
The whole paragraph can be indented, or just the first
line. In this way, multi-paragraph footnotes work like
multi-paragraph list items.
This paragraph won't be part of the note, because it
isn't indented.
The identifiers in footnote references may not contain spaces, tabs,
or newlines. These identifiers are used only to correlate the footnote
reference with the note itself; in the output, footnotes will be
numbered sequentially.
The footnotes themselves need not be placed at the end of the
document. They may appear anywhere except inside other block elements
(lists, block quotes, tables, etc.).
Inline footnotes are also allowed (though, unlike regular notes, they
cannot contain multiple paragraphs). The syntax is as follows:
Here is an inline note.^[Inlines notes are easier to write, since
you don't have to pick an identifier and move down to type the
note.]
Inline and regular footnotes may be mixed freely.
Citations
Pandoc extension.
Pandoc can automatically generate citations and a bibliography in a
number of styles (using Andrea Rossato’s hs-citeproc). In
order to use this feature, you will need a bibliographic database in one
of the following formats:
| MODS |
.mods |
| BibTeX/BibLaTeX |
.bib |
| RIS |
.ris |
| EndNote |
.enl |
| EndNote XML |
.xml |
| ISI |
.wos |
| MEDLINE |
.medline |
| Copac |
.copac |
| JSON citeproc |
.json |
You will need to specify the bibliography file using the
--bibliography command-line option (which may be repeated
if you have several bibliographies).
By default, pandoc will use a Chicago author-date format for
citations and references. To use another style, you will need to use the
--csl option to specify a CSL 1.0 style file. A primer on
creating and modifying CSL styles can be found at http://citationstyles.org/downloads/primer.html. A
repository of CSL styles can be found at https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles. See
also http://zotero.org/styles for easy browsing.
Citations go inside square brackets and are separated by semicolons.
Each citation must have a key, composed of ‘@’ + the citation identifier
from the database, and may optionally have a prefix, a locator, and a
suffix. Here are some examples:
Blah blah [see @doe99, pp. 33-35; also @smith04, ch. 1].
Blah blah [@doe99, pp. 33-35, 38-39 and *passim*].
Blah blah [@smith04; @doe99].
A minus sign (-) before the @ will suppress
mention of the author in the citation. This can be useful when the
author is already mentioned in the text:
Smith says blah [-@smith04].
You can also write an in-text citation, as follows:
@smith04 says blah.
@smith04 [p. 33] says blah.
If the style calls for a list of works cited, it will be placed at
the end of the document. Normally, you will want to end your document
with an appropriate header:
last paragraph...
# References
The bibliography will be inserted after this header.
