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 2.29 and is compatible with Pandoc 2.9.

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 , jats and 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, or pdf-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.

Note that starting with version 2.5, pandoc-mode settings files are written in a Lisp format (as demonstrated above). Old-style settings files continue to be read, so there is no need to change anything, but if you change any settings and save them, the file is converted.

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-@))