Pandoc
Command-line universal document converter between Markdown, Word, LaTeX, HTML, Typst and more.
HN commenters like it for converting Markdown into almost any format,123 including PDFs via Typst or LaTeX and Word documents for Office workflows.4567 The most common caveat is that its documentation and filter API have grown harder to follow,89 and some find it slow next to lighter Markdown converters.10
Why people recommend it
Format conversion · 3
Converts Markdown to and from nearly any format, including docx, HTML and LaTeX.
“pandoc can turn it into almost any format.”
“I’d highly recommend pandoc[0] if you need markdown conversion.”
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“Pandoc lets me do things like generate libreoffice or microsoft word documents from the markdown”
PDF via Typst · 3
Commenters routinely produce PDFs from Markdown using Typst or LaTeX as the engine.
“I mostly use it for Markdown->Typst these days and it does this job very well.”
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“I pass from markdown to typst pdf via pandoc a few times a day.”
Office interop · 3
Bridges Markdown writing with Word and Outlook content required by others.
“I would be lost had I have to use the Office tools to edit and format my text.”
“Pandoc is great. I use it multiple times per day”
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“I used it to output my doctoral thesis in LaTeX from Markdown 10 years ago”
Site generators · 3
Small bash scripts around pandoc serve as simple static site and blog generators.
“I gobbled together some bash scripts around pandoc to build a site generator for my personal website. Works great.”
“Love pandoc, I use it for all sorts of stuff”
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“hand-rolled pandoc + bash site maker”
Book publishing · 3
Used in pipelines to produce novels and books in multiple output formats.
“Pandoc is such an amazing piece of software.”
“It all works quite beautifully.”
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“Also Pandoc-flavored markdown is pretty decent.”
Filters · 3
Lua and other filters let users extend conversions, with long-term stability across updates.
“Eventually I switched to Pandoc lua filters, which eliminated the toil while also being platform agnostic”
“pandoc has a Typst reader. I use a pandoc filter to write in markdown with math in Typst and convert to LaTeX”
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“We use it for seven years and it still runs fine when we update Pandoc”
Caveats and dissent
Docs and bloat · 2
Some feel pandoc and its docs have become bloated and overwhelming, with uncertain Lua filter compatibility.
“Is there anyone feeling that Pandoc is ever increasingly bloated?”
“I use pandoc filters when automatically updating/building packages”
Speed · 2
Lighter tools like lowdown are much faster, and the LaTeX-to-PDF route can be slow.
“I use cmake to switch the backend between pandoc and lowdown”
“Also Pandoc-flavored markdown is pretty decent.”
Complex books · 1
One author struggled with Markdown plus pandoc for multi-format book output and switched to Asciidoc.
“I was struggling with Markdown+pandoc+custom scripts/styles, so I switched to Asciidoc.”
Docx round-trips · 1
Merging edits from generated docx files back into Markdown is manual.
“I use Markdown + Pandoc compiling to a .docx as a workaround”
Often compared with
1 moved from Typst to Pandoc
1 moved from Pandoc to Typst
1 moved from Pandoc to Quarto
1 moved from Pandoc to Asciidoctor
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Twenty Years of Pandoc 7 mentions
- Pandoc Templates 6 mentions
- Typst 0.15.0 5 mentions
- Pandoc Lua Filters 3 mentions
- Ask HN: What's your preferred Python tool to convert Markdown to print ready PDF 2 mentions
- Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text 2 mentions
Also written as pandoc. Data: pandoc.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 41
“CopyAsMarkdown [4] (with Pandoc)”
“I use Markdown + Pandoc compiling to a .docx as a workaround”
“pandoc has a Typst reader. I use a pandoc filter to write in markdown with math in Typst and convert to LaTeX”
“You should hook up pandoc to it, and support everything it can handle.”
“I use cmake to switch the backend between pandoc and lowdown”
“I use it to create pdfs for my blog posts with that code”
“I gobbled together some bash scripts around pandoc to build a site generator for my personal website. Works great.”
“I mostly use it for Markdown->Typst these days and it does this job very well.”
“Pandoc is my go-to tool.”
“Love pandoc, I use it for all sorts of stuff”
“Pandoc is great. I use it multiple times per day”
“I use pandoc filters when automatically updating/building packages”
“We use it for seven years and it still runs fine when we update Pandoc”
“Is there anyone feeling that Pandoc is ever increasingly bloated?”
“and pandoc as others have suggested”
“Benchmarks are hard to evaluate without a comparison to pandoc or other solutions.”
“you can tell pandoc to use typst as pdf-engine.”
“Latex is in no sense required by pandoc and never has been”
“It all works quite beautifully.”
“I pass from markdown to typst pdf via pandoc a few times a day.”
“why would I use typst over org-mode or $your_fave_markdown + pandoc?”
“by transforming your markdown with Pandoc”
“I think the tooling around pandoc is what makes it such a good tool.”
“I use Pandoc fairly extensively”
“I used it to output my doctoral thesis in LaTeX from Markdown 10 years ago”
“I would be lost had I have to use the Office tools to edit and format my text.”
“Pandoc is such an amazing piece of software.”
“pandoc --metadata-file=../templates/latex-header-includes.yaml -t pdf”
“pandoc can turn it into almost any format.”
“usually using markdown + pandoc”
“I’d highly recommend pandoc[0] if you need markdown conversion.”
“https://pandoc.org/”
“I ended up just using Pandoc”
“The blog is custom-made, built using Nix and pandoc.”
“Pandoc is an incredible tool that every documentarian knows.”
“hand-rolled pandoc + bash site maker”
“Also Pandoc-flavored markdown is pretty decent.”
“Eventually I switched to Pandoc lua filters, which eliminated the toil while also being platform agnostic”
“the book/site is "weaved" with pandoc”
“I was struggling with Markdown+pandoc+custom scripts/styles, so I switched to Asciidoc.”
“Pandoc lets me do things like generate libreoffice or microsoft word documents from the markdown”