Introduction
pandoc-mode is an Emacs mode for interacting with
Pandoc. Pandoc is a program (plus libraries)
created by John MacFarlane that can convert a text written in one markup
language into another markup language. pandoc-mode is implemented as a
minor mode that can be activated alongside the major mode for any of
Pandoc’s supported input formats. It provides facilities to set the
various options that Pandoc accepts and to run Pandoc on the input file.
It is possible to create different output profiles for a single input
file, so that you can, for example, write your text in Markdown and then
translate it to HTML for online reading, PDF for offline reading and
Texinfo for reading in Emacs, all with just a few keystrokes.
The current version of pandoc-mode is 2.31 and is compatible with
Pandoc 2.12.
Installation
The easiest way to install pandoc-mode is to use the
Melpa package repository.
In order to activate pandoc-mode in a buffer, you need to type
M-x pandoc-mode. To start pandoc-mode automatically when you load
e.g., a Markdown file, you can add a hook to your init file:
(add-hook 'markdown-mode-hook 'pandoc-mode)
However, if you do not want to start pandoc-mode every time you work
on a Markdown document, you can use a different function in
markdown-mode-hook: instead of using pandoc-mode, you can use
conditionally-turn-on-pandoc. This function checks if a default
settings file exists for the file you’re opening and only turns on
pandoc-mode if it finds one. (For more info on the settings file, see
the section ‘Settings Files’.)
Additionally, if you want to automatically load the default
pandoc-mode settings file for the file you’re opening, you can add the
following to your init file:
(add-hook 'pandoc-mode-hook 'pandoc-load-default-settings)
The function pandoc-load-default-settings checks if a default settings
file exists for the file being loaded and reads its settings if it finds
one.
OS X
pandoc-mode expects that the pandoc binary can be found in your
system’s $PATH and that the contents of $PATH is available to Emacs.
Especially on OS X, this may not always be the case. To remedy this, you
can set the user option pandoc-binary to the full path of pandoc on
your system. A more elegant solution is to install the
exec-path-from-shell
package. This package makes sure that the contents of your system’s
$PATH variable is visible to Emacs, allowing Emacs to find pandoc.
Usage
pandoc-mode uses the hydra package
to create a keyboard-driven menu interface to all options and settings.
The main menu is called by pressing C-c /. After that, everything
should be self-explanatory. From the main menu, you can run pandoc on
the buffer, view the output buffer and the current settings, set the
input and output formats, and you can go to the options menu.
Note that if the menu bar is active, pandoc-mode also provides a menu
in the menu bar. It has the same structure as the hydra menu and it has
the advantage that options that do not apply to the current file (due to
its input or output format), are generally greyed out. On the other
hand, the hydra menu shows the value of the options and allows you to
change more than one option without having to keep reopening the menu.
The menu bar menu disappears when you select an option, the hydra menu
(generally) does not. Instead, it can be dismissed with q. Below, I
talk about the hydra menu specifically, but most of what is said applies
to the menu bar menu as well.
In the options menu, you can set options for running pandoc on your
input file. All Pandoc options can be set from the menu (except for one
or two that do not make sense, e.g., --print-default-template). Note
that when you set options, they only apply to the current file and the
current output format. When you open another file, or when you change
the output format, all settings are reset to their default values.
(There are ways to make settings more permanent, of course, as discussed
below.)
Input and output formats
The most important settings are the input and output formats. The input format is set automatically by Emacs on the basis of the major mode of the input file, but you can change it if you need to. The output format defaults to “Native Haskell”, so most likely you will want to set it to something else before you run Pandoc. The input and output format menus also provide access to a submenu with the Markdown extensions that Pandoc supports.
As already stated, you may wish to use different output formats for a
single input file. Most likely, the options that you want to pass to
Pandoc will be different for each output format. To make this easier,
pandoc-mode has the ability to save the settings for a specific output
format. The main menu has an option “Settings files” (C-c / s), which
takes you to a submenu where you can save the current settings. Emacs
saves these settings to a hidden file in the same directory as the file
you’re editing, under a name composed of the input file, appended with
the name of the output format and the string .pandoc. So if your input
file is called mytext.md, the html settings file will be called
.mytext.md.html.pandoc. (See the section ‘Settings
Files’ for details.)
A single document can have a separate settings file for each output
format that Pandoc supports. These can simply be created by setting all
options the way you want them for the first output format, save them,
then choose another output format, set the required options, save again,
etc. Because the name of a settings file contains the output format for
which it was created, the different settings files won’t interfere with
each other. When you switch the output format (with C-c / O), Emacs
checks if a corresponding settings file exists and loads it if one is
found.
On systems that have symbolic links, it is also possible to specify a
default output format (C-c / s d). This is done by creating a symbolic
link to the settings file of the current output format (a settings file
is created if one doesn’t exist yet) with the output format replaced by
the string "default". The file it points to is read by the function
pandoc-load-default-settings, making it possible to automatically load
a specific settings file when pandoc-mode is invoked, as described
above.
Note that the current output format is always visible in the mode line:
the “lighter” for pandoc-mode in the mode line has the form
Pandoc/<format>, where <format> is the current output format.
The major modes for which pandoc-mode selects an input format
automatically can be customised (user option pandoc-major-modes). You
can add major modes or remove those that you don’t use. Similarly, you
can customise the file extensions for each output format
(pandoc-output-format-extensions).
The options menu
The options menu has a number of submenus, each related to a specific
type of options: file options, reader options, writer options (general
and specific), citations and math rendering. The file options menu
contains options for the output file, output directory, data directory,
the directory to extract media files to, and the master file. Only two
of these (the data directory and the extract media directory) correspond
directly to a Pandoc option. The output file and output directory
options are combined to form Pandoc’s --output option, while the
master file option is only used by pandoc-mode. These options are
discussed in the sections ‘Setting an output
file’ and ’Master file’,
respectively.
Note that the subdivision in the options menu is based on the
subdivision in the Pandoc README and the user guide on
Pandoc.org, which should make it easier
to find the relevant options in the menus. pandoc-mode supports Pandoc
version 1.x and version 2.x: options that are only valid in Pandoc 1.x
are marked with an asterisk. (Options that only exist in Pandoc 2.x
aren’t marked.)
One nice thing about the hydra menus is that the value of an option is displayed beside it. Pandoc’s options come in several different kinds. Switches, (boolean options that do not take a value), are toggled when you select them, and their value is displayed as either “yes” or “no”. If you select another kind of option, you are asked to provide a value in the minibuffer. For template variables and metadata items, you are asked both a variable / metadata name and a value.
Unsetting an option can usually be done by prefixing the relevant key
with a dash -. This is actually the negative prefix argument, which
can be typed without the meta (alt) key when inside a hydra menu. So for
example, if you’re in the files menu (C-c / o f), you can set an
output file with o, and to unset the output file, you can type - o.
Many Pandoc options have file names as values. These are normally
prompted for and stored as relative paths. File name completion is
available, starting from the current directory. For some options, such
as --css, relative paths make more sense because an absolute file
would almost certainly be incorrect once the output html file is moved
to the web server. Other options, such as --template, look in Pandoc’s
data directory and therefore also do not require an absolute path.
Lastly, auxiliary files, such as --include-in-header, will usually be
stored in the same directory as the source file or in a subdirectory, in
which case a relative path is unproblematic.
However, if for some reason you need to store an absolute path for an
option, you can do so by using the prefix argument C-u. So for example
in the general writer options menu, accessible through C-/ o w,
pressing C-u H asks for a file to include in the header and stores it
as an absolute path. Note that absolute paths are not expanded, i.e.,
they may contain abbreviations such as ~ for one’s home directory.
This makes it easier to share settings files between computers with
different OSes (for example, Linux expands ~ to /home/<user>, while
on OS X it becomes /Users/<user>).
Note that if you use a minibuffer completion framework (such as Ivy or Helm), file name completion may work differently. Ivy, for example, always expands file names.
Some file options (such as --epub-stylesheet) may have a default
value. Such options can be specified on the pandoc command line
without naming a file. To select such a default value for a file option,
use a numeric prefix argument, which in the hydra menu is obtained by
pressing a number without the meta key. That is, to select the default
EPUB style sheet, go to the EPUB options menu (C-/ o s E) and press
1 s.
Options that are not files or numbers are “string options”, which
include options that specify a URL. These may also have a default value,
which can be set in the same way as with file options. Note, though,
that this does not apply to options that only have a limited set of
possible values (e.g., --email-obfuscation, --pdf-engine). These can
be set or unset, you cannot explicitly request their default value.
(`pandoc’ uses their default values even if they are not specified on
the command line, unlike string options.)
To get an overview of all the settings for the current file and output
format, you can use the option “View current settings” in the main menu
(C-c / S). This displays all settings in a *Help* buffer in a
Lisp-like format. For example, the settings for TeXinfo output of this
manual look like this:
((standalone . t)
(read . "markdown")
(write . "texinfo")
(output . t)
(include-before-body . "~/src/pandoc-mode/manual/texi-before-body"))
Template variables and metadata
pandoc-mode allows you to set or change template variables through the
menu. The variables are in the general writer options menu, the metadata
in the reader options menu. Emacs will ask you for the name of a
variable or metadata item and for a value for it. If you provide a name
that already exists (TAB completion works), the new value replaces the
old one.
Deleting a template variable or metadata item can be done by prefixing
the menu key with -. Emacs will ask you for the variable name (TAB
completion works here, too) and removes it from the list.
Running Pandoc
The first item in the menu is “Run Pandoc” (accessible with C-c / r),
which, as the name suggests, runs Pandoc on the document, passing all
options you have set. By default, Pandoc sends the output to stdout
(except when the output format is “odt”, “epub” or “docx”, in which case
output is always sent to a file). Emacs captures this output and
redirects it to the buffer *Pandoc output*. The output buffer is not
normally shown, but you can make it visible through the menu or by
typing C-c / V. Error messages from Pandoc are also displayed in this
buffer.
When you run Pandoc, pandoc-mode also generates a few messages, which
are logged in a buffer called *Pandoc log*. You will rarely need to
see this, since pandoc-mode displays a message telling you whether
Pandoc finished successfully or not. In the latter case, the output
buffer is displayed, so you can see the error that Pandoc reported.
Note that when you run Pandoc, Pandoc doesn’t read the file on disk.
Rather, Emacs feeds it the contents of the buffer through stdin. This
means that you don’t actually have to save your file before running
Pandoc. Whatever is in your buffer, saved or not, is passed to Pandoc.
Alternatively, if the region is active, only the region is sent to
Pandoc.
If you call this command with a prefix argument C-u (so the key
sequence becomes C-/ C-u r: C-/ to open the menu and C-u r to run
Pandoc), Emacs asks you for an output format to use. If there is a
settings file for the format you specify, the settings in it will be
passed to Pandoc instead of the settings in the current buffer. If there
is no settings file, Pandoc will be called with just the output format
and no other options.
Note that specifying an output format this way does not change the output format or any of the settings in the buffer, it just changes the output profile used for calling Pandoc. This can be useful if you use different output formats but don’t want to keep switching between profiles when creating the different output files.
Setting an output file
If you want to save the output to a file rather than have it appear in the output buffer, you can set an explicit output file. Note that setting an output file is not the same thing as setting an output format (though normally the output file has a suffix that indicates the format of the file).
In pandoc-mode, the output file setting has three options: the default
is to send output to stdout, in which case it is redirected to the
buffer *Pandoc output*. This option can be selected by typing - o in
the file options menu. Alternatively, you can let Emacs create an output
filename for you. In this case the output file will have the same base
name as the input file but with the proper suffix for the output format.
To select this option, prefix the output file key o with C-u in the
file options menu. The third option is to specify an explicit output
file. This can (obviously) be done by hitting just o.
Note that Pandoc does not allow output to be sent to stdout if the output format is an OpenOffice.org Document (ODT), EPUB or MS Word (docx) file. Therefore, Emacs will always create an output filename in those cases, unless of course you’ve explicitly set an output file yourself.
The output file you set is always just the base filename, it does not specify a directory. Which directory the output file is written to depends on the setting “Output Directory” (which is not actually a Pandoc option). Emacs creates an output destination out of the settings for the output directory and output file. If you don’t specify any output directory, the output file will be written to the same directory that the input file is in.
Creating a pdf
The second item in the main menu is “Create PDF” (invoked with
C-c / p). This option calls Pandoc with a PDF file as output file.
Pandoc offers different ways of creating a PDF file: you can use LaTeX,
an HTML-to-PDF converter, or groff. Which method is used depends on the
output format you specify, because Pandoc creates a PDF file by first
converting your input file to the specified output format and then
calling the pdf converter on the output file.
When creating a PDF using pandoc-mode, Emacs first checks if the
output format of the current buffer is set to latex, context,
beamer, html, or ms. If it is, C-c / p creates the PDF using
that format. If you want to bypass this automatic detection, use a
prefix argument C-u (i.e., type C-c / C-u p). Emacs will then ask
you for the output format to use.
If the buffer’s current output format does not allow for PDF creation, Emacs will ask you which output format to use. If there is a settings file for the output format you specify, it is used to create the PDF. (The current buffer’s settings aren’t changed, however.) If there is no settings file, Pandoc is called with only the input and output formats and the output file.
The format you choose is remembered (at least until you close the buffer
or change the output format), so that the next time you convert the
buffer to PDF, you are not asked for the format again. If you want to
use a different format, use the prefix argument C-u.
This setup means that you do not need to switch the output format to
latex, context or html5 every time you wish to create a PDF, which
can be practical if you’re also converting to another format. However,
if you wish to change settings for PDF output, you do need to switch
to the relevant output format.
Note that for latex, beamer and html, you can use different PDF
engines. For latex and beamer, these are pdflatex (the default),
xelatex and lualatex, for html there are wkhtmltopdf (the
default), weasyprint and prince. If you wish to use a PDF engine
other than the default, you need to set the option pdf-engine.
Viewing the output
After running Pandoc, you can view the output file with the option
View output file in the menu (or C-c / v). Emacs will try to display
the file created during the most recent Pandoc run. Which viewer is used
to display the output file depends on the output format (not on the
output file’s extension, so that you can use different viewers for
different output formats, even if their file extensions are identical.
For example, docbook, jatsand tei all use xml as the file
extension, but you may not want to use the same viewer for all of them).
Viewers are defined in the customisation option pandoc-viewers. There
are three types of viewers: you can choose to use Emacs itself as the
file viewer, in which case the output file is opened in Emacs and
displayed using display-buffer. It is also possible to define an
external viewer, which should then be a program that takes a file
argument on the command line. For example, word processor formats
(odt, docx) and Powerpoint presentations (pptx) are by default
opened in LibreOffice, which can be called with the shell command
libreoffice <filename>.
Lastly, it is also possible to specify a specific Emacs function to
handle the file. This should be a function that takes a file name as
argument. The function can pass on the file to an external program
(HTML-based formats, for example, are by default handled by the function
browse-url, which sends the file to a suitable browser), or it can
arrange to open the file in Emacs, if the standard find-file-noselect
is not suitable. Note, though, that if you choose this method, you
should also make sure that your function not only opens the file but
also displays its buffer (e.g., using display-buffer).
If the most recent call to Pandoc created a pdf file (i.e, the option
“Convert to pdf” was called), Emacs will display the pdf file instead of
the output file defined by the output file/directory options. The viewer
to use in this case is defined by the option pandoc-pdf-viewer, which
can be Emacs (which will then use doc-view-mode, orpdf-tools` if
installed) or an external program.
Note that this functionality is not as full-featured as with e.g.,
AUCTeX and SyncTeX. There is no forward or backward search and what
happens when you view a file when an earlier version of that file is
already open in some application is up to that application. Emacs will
usually notice that the file has changed on disk and will ask you if you
want to reload it. Pdf viewers will generally behave correctly (that
includes pdf-tools in Emacs) and simply reload the file without
asking.
If you want to open the output file automatically after conversion, you
can add the function pandoc-view-output to
pandoc-async-success-hook. As the name of the hook implies, this only
works if you call Pandoc asynchronously —cf. the option
pandoc-use-async— but this is the default and there is usually little
reason to change it.
If you try to view an output file before calling Pandoc (e.g., after
reopening the input file), Emacs will try to display the output file
defined by the output directory and output file settings. If no
output file is defined at all (which means that Pandoc does not create
an output file but instead sends its output to standard out), Emacs will
show the *Pandoc output* buffer, which is where the output of the call
to Pandoc is captured.
If the most recent Pandoc run returned an error, trying to view the
output file will result in an error as well, unless you provide a prefix
argument (C-c / C-u v), in which case Emacs will try to display the
output file defined by the output directory and output file
settings.
Connection Type
By default, Emacs starts pandoc as an asynchronous process using a
tty. If this causes problems for some reason, you can try using a pipe
instead by customising pandoc-process-connection-type. Alternatively,
you can use a synchronous process by unsetting the user option
pandoc-use-async.
Citation Jumping
pandoc-mode provides the function pandoc-jump-to-reference that
locates a reference within external bibliography files indicated by the
bibliography user option. Note that entries to the bibliography user
option list must have an absolute path for this option to work properly
(i.e. "./Bibliography.bib" rather than "Bibliography.bib"). This
feature is not bound to any key by default, but may of course be bound
to a key combination as follows:
(define-key markdown-mode-map (kbd "C-c j") 'pandoc-jump-to-reference)
The jump behaviour can be customised by changing the option
pandoc-citation-jump-function. Its default value is
pandoc-goto-citation-reference, which opens the relevant BibTeX file
in a new window and moves point to the entry. Two alternative functions
have been defined: pandoc-open-in-ebib, which opens the relevant entry
in Ebib, and pandoc-show-citation-as-help, which shows the entry in a
*Help* buffer, but does not open the corresponding BibTeX file.
Alternatively, you may also define your own function, which should take two arguments: the key of the entry to be displayed and a list of BibTeX files.
Font lock
pandoc-mode adds font lock keywords for citations and numbered example
lists. The relevant faces can be customised in the customisation group
pandoc.
Settings Files
Apart from settings files for individual files (which are called local
settings files), pandoc-mode supports two other types of settings
files: project files and global files. Project files are settings files
that apply to all input files in a given directory (except those files
for which a local settings file exists). Global settings files, as the
name implies, apply globally, to files for which no local or project
file is found. Both types of files are specific to a particular output
format, just like local settings files. Project files live in the
directory they apply to and are called Project.<format>.pandoc. Global
files live in the directory specified by the variable pandoc-data-dir,
which defaults to ~/.emacs.d/pandoc-mode/, but this can of course be
changed in the customisation group pandoc.
Whenever pandoc-mode loads settings for an input file, it first checks
if there is a local settings file. If none is found, it looks for a
project file, and if that isn’t found, it tries to load a global
settings file. In this way, local settings override project settings and
project settings override global settings. Note, however, that if a
local settings file exists, all settings are read from this file. Any
project file or global file for the relevant output format is ignored.
You can create a project or global settings file through the menu in the submenu “Settings Files”. This simply saves all settings for the current buffer to a project or global settings file. (Any local settings file for the file in the current buffer will be kept. You’ll need to delete it manually if you no longer need it.)
The name of a global settings file has the form <format>.pandoc, where
<format> obviously specifies the output format. <format> can also be
the string "default“, however, in which case it specifies a default
settings file, which is loaded by pandoc-load-default-settings when no
default local or project settings file is found. In this way, you can
override the default output format used for new files.
One thing to keep in mind is that the method in which pandoc-mode
saves settings and passes them to the pandoc binary is not compatible
with Pandoc’s YAML metadata blocks/files or with Pandoc’s defaults file.
Since pandoc-mode passes all settings to pandoc as command-line
options, they override settings in defaults files and in YAML metadata
blocks or files. You should generally stick to using one or the other
method.
File-local variables
pandoc-mode also allows options to be set as file-local variables,
which gives you the ability to keep the settings for a file in the file
itself. To specify an option in this way, use the long form of the
option as a variable name, prefixed with pandoc/ (note the slash; use
pandoc/read and pandoc/write for the input and output formats, and
pandoc/table-of-contents for the TOC).
For example, in order to set a bibliography file, add the following line to the local variable block:
pandoc/bibliography: "~/path/to/mybib.bib"
The easiest way to add a file-local variable is to use the command
M-x add-file-local-variable. This will put the variable at the end of
the file and add the correct comment syntax. Note that the values are
Lisp expressions, which means that strings need to be surrounded with
double quotes. Symbols do not need to be quoted, however.
Settings specified as file-local variables are kept separate from other
settings: they cannot be set through the menu and they are never saved
to a settings file. When you call pandoc-view-settings (C-c / S),
they are shown in a separate section. A source file can both have a
settings file and specify settings in file-local variables. If this
happens, the latter override the former.
Note that it is also possible to specify the customisation option
pandoc-binary as a file-local variable. It does not require the
pandoc/ prefix, but since its value is a string, it must be enclosed
in quotes:
pandoc-binary: "/path/to/alternate/pandoc“
Managing numbered examples
Pandoc provides a method for creating examples that are numbered
sequentially throughout the document (see Numbered example
lists in the
Pandoc documentation). pandoc-mode makes it easier to manage such
lists. First, by going to “Example Lists | Insert New Example”
(C-c / e i), you can insert a new example list item with a numeric
label: the first example you insert will be numbered (@1), the second
(@2), and so on. Before inserting the first example item, Emacs will
search the document for any existing definitions and number the new
items sequentially, so that the numeric label will always be unique.
Pandoc allows you to refer to such labeled example items in the text by
writing (@1) and pandoc-mode provides a facility to make this
easier. If you select the menu item “Example Lists | Select And Insert
Example Label” (C-c / e s) Emacs displays a list of all the
(@)-definitions in your document. You can select one with the up or
down keys (you can also use j and k or n and p) and then hit
return to insert the label into your document. If you change your
mind, you can leave the selection buffer with q without inserting
anything into your document.
Using @@-directives
pandoc-mode includes a facility to make specific, automatic changes to
the text before sending it to Pandoc. This is done with so-called
@@-directives, which trigger an Elisp function and are then replaced
with the output of that function. A @@-directive takes the form
@@directive, where directive can be any user-defined string (see
How to define directive strings). Before Pandoc
is called, Emacs searches the text for these directives and replaces
them with the output of the functions they call.
So suppose you define (e.g., in ~/.emacs.d/init) a function
my-pandoc-current-date:
(defun my-pandoc-current-date (_)
(format-time-string "%d %b %Y"))
Now you can define a directive \@@date that calls this function. The
effect is that every time you write \@@date in your document, it is
replaced with the current date.
Note that the function that the directive calls must have one argument,
which is used to pass the output format to the function (as a string).
This way you can have your directives do different things depending on
the output format. This argument can be called anything you like. In the
above example, it is called _ (i.e., just an underscore), to indicate
that the variable is not actually used in the function. If you do use
it, you should probably choose a more meaningful name.
@@-directives can also take the form @@directive{...}. Here, the
text between curly braces is an argument, which is passed to the
function called by the directive as the second argument. Note that there
should be no space between the directive and the left brace. If there
is, Emacs won’t see the argument and will treat it as normal text.
It is possible to define a directive that can take an optional argument.
This is simply done by defining the argument that the directive’s
function takes as optional. Suppose you define my-pandoc-current-date
as follows:
(defun my-pandoc-current-date (_ &optional text)
(format "%s%s" (if text (concat text ", ") "")
(format-time-string "%d %b %Y")))
This way, you could write \@@date to get just the date, and
\@@date{Cologne} to get “Cologne, @@date”.
Two directives have been predefined: \@@lisp and \@@include. Both of
these take an argument. \@@lisp can be used to include Elisp code in
the document which is then executed and replaced by the result (which
should be a string). For example, another way to put the current date in
your document, without defining a special function for it, is to write
the following:
\@@lisp{(format-time-string "%d %b %Y")}
Emacs takes the Elisp code between the curly braces, executes it, and replaces the directive with the result of the code. Note that the code can be anything, and there is no check to see if it is “safe”.
\@@include can be used to include another file into the current
document (which must of course have the same input format):
\@@include{copyright.text}
This directive reads the file copyright.text and replaces the
\@@include directive with its contents.
Processing @@-directives works everywhere in the document, including
in code and code blocks, and also in the %-header block. So by putting
the above \@@lisp directive in the third line of the %-header block,
the meta data for your documents will always show the date on which the
file was created by Pandoc.
If it should ever happen that you need to write a literal "\@@lisp" in
your document, you can simply put a backslash \ before the first @:
\\@@lisp. Emacs removes the backslash (which is necessary in case the
string \\@@lisp is contained in a code block) and then continues
searching for the next directive.
After Emacs has processed a directive and inserted the text it produced
in the buffer, processing of directives is resumed from the start of
the inserted text. That means that if an \@@include directive produces
another \@@include directive, the newly inserted \@@include
directive gets processed as well.
Master file
If you have a master file with one or more \@@include directives and
you’re editing one of the included files, running Pandoc from that
buffer will not produce the desired result, because it runs Pandoc on
the included file. To make working with included files easier, you can
specify a master file for them, with the command
pandoc-set-master-file (through the menu with C-c / o f m). When
this option is set, Pandoc is run on the master file rather than on the
file in the current buffer.
The settings used in this case are always the settings for the master
file, not the settings for the included file. The only exception is the
output format, which is taken from the buffer from which you run Pandoc.
This makes it possible to change the output format while in a buffer
visiting an included file and have pandoc-mode do the right thing.
One thing to keep in mind is that the master file setting is dependent on the output format. When you set a master file, it is only set for the output format that is active. This means that you need to set the output format before you set the master file.
Note that the master file menu also has an option “Use this file as
master file” (C-c / o f M). When you select this option, the current
file is set as master file and a project settings file is created for
the current output format. This is a quick way to set the master file
for all files in a directory, since the project settings will apply to
all files in the directory.
Defining @@-directives
Defining @@-directives yourself is done in two steps. First, you need
to define the function that the directive will call. This function must
take at least one argument to pass the output format and may take at
most one additional argument. It should return a string, which is
inserted into the buffer. The second step is to go to the customisation
buffer with M-x customize-group RET pandoc RET. One of the
options there is pandoc-directives. This variable contains a list of
directives and the functions that they are linked with. You can add a
directive by providing a name (without @@) and the function to call.
Note that directive names may only consists of letters (a-z, A-Z) or
numbers (0-9). Other characters are not allowed. Directive names are
case sensitive, so @@Date is not the same as \@@date.
Passing more than one argument to an @@-directive is not supported.
However, if you really want to, you could use split-string to split
the argument of the @@-directive and “fake” multiple arguments that
way.
A final note: the function that processes the @@-directives is called
pandoc-process-directives and can be called interactively. This may be
useful if a directive is not producing the output that you expect. By
running pandoc-process-directives interactively, you can see what
exactly your directives produce before the resulting text is sent to
pandoc. The changes can of course be undone with M-x undo (usually
bound to C-/).
Directive hooks
There is another customisable variable related to @@-directives:
pandoc-directives-hook. This is a list of functions that are executed
before the directives are processed. These functions are not supposed
to change anything in the buffer, they are intended for setting up
things that the directive functions might need.
Disabling the hydra menu
The hydra package provides a nice way to control pandoc-mode and to
set all the options that Pandoc provides. However, if for some reason
you prefer to use normal key bindings, you can disable the hydra menu by
rebinding C-c /. To restore the original key bindings, put the
following in your init file:
(with-eval-after-load 'pandoc-mode
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / r" #'pandoc-run-pandoc)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / p" #'pandoc-convert-to-pdf)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / s" #'pandoc-save-settings-file)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / w" #'pandoc-set-write)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / f" #'pandoc-set-master-file)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / m" #'pandoc-set-metadata)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / v" #'pandoc-set-variable)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / V" #'pandoc-view-output-buffer)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / S" #'pandoc-view-settings)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / c" #'pandoc-insert-@)
(define-key 'pandoc-mode-map "C-c / C" #'pandoc-select-@))
It’s also possible to bind other commands to keys. The switches (i.e.,
the options that can only be on or off) can be toggled with the command
pandoc-toggle-interactive. All other options (except --read) have
dedicated functions to set them, called pandoc-set-<option>, where
<option> corresponds to the long form of the option without the double
dashes (use write rather than to, and table-of-contents rather
than toc).