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PANDOC_MARKDOWN(5) File Formats Manual PANDOC_MARKDOWN(5)

NAME
pandoc_markdown - markdown syntax for pandoc(1)

DESCRIPTION
Pandoc understands an extended and slightly revised version of John Gruber's markdown syn‐
tax. This document explains the syntax, noting differences from standard markdown.
Except where noted, these differences can be suppressed by using the markdown_strict for‐
mat instead of markdown. An extensions can be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format
name and disabled by adding -EXTENSION. For example, markdown_strict+footnotes is strict
markdown with footnotes enabled, while markdown-footnotes-pipe_tables is pandoc's markdown
without footnotes or pipe tables.

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, pan‐
doc 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 impor‐
tant 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.

Extension: escaped_line_breaks

A backslash followed by a newline is also a hard line break. Note: in multiline and grid
table cells, this is the only way to create a hard line break, since trailing spaces in
the cells are ignored.

HEADERS
There are two kinds of headers, Setext and atx.

Setext-style headers
A setext-style header is a line of text "underlined" with a row of = signs (for a level
one header) or - 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).

Atx-style headers
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

### A level-three header ###

As with setext-style headers, the header text can contain formatting:

# A level-one header with a [link](/url) and *emphasis*

Extension: blank_before_header

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
Extension: header_attributes

Headers can be assigned attributes using this syntax at the end of the line containing the
header text:

{#identifier .class .class key=value key=value}

Although this syntax allows assignment of classes and key/value attributes, only identi‐
fiers currently have any affect in the writers (and only in some writers: HTML, LaTeX,
ConTeXt, Textile, AsciiDoc). Thus, for example, the following headers will all be
assigned the identifier foo:

# My header {#foo}

## My header ## {#foo}

My other header {#foo}
---------------

(This syntax is compatible with PHP Markdown Extra.)

Headers with the class unnumbered will not be numbered, even if --number-sections is spec‐
ified. A single hyphen (-) in an attribute context is equivalent to .unnumbered, and
preferable in non-English documents. So,

# My header {-}

is just the same as

# My header {.unnumbered}

Extension: auto_identifiers

A header without an explicitly specified identifier will be automatically assigned a
unique identifier based on the header text. To derive the identifier from the header
text,

· Remove all formatting, links, etc.

· Remove all footnotes.

· 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 Identifier
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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-latex-and-context).

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.

Extension: implicit_header_references

Pandoc behaves as if reference links have been defined for each header. So, instead of

[header identifiers](#header-identifiers-in-html)

you can simply write

[header identifiers]

[header identifiers][]

[the section on header identifiers][header identifiers]

If there are multiple headers with identical text, the corresponding reference will link
to the first one only, and you will need to use explicit links to link to the others, as
described above.

Unlike regular reference links, these references are case-sensitive.

Note: if you have defined an explicit identifier for a header, then implicit references to
it will not work.

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 pre‐
ceded 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.

Extension: blank_before_blockquote

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 the markdown_strict format 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.

Fenced code blocks
Extension: fenced_code_blocks

In addition to standard indented code blocks, Pandoc supports fenced 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, fenced 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 high‐
lighting. 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:

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.

LINE BLOCKS
Extension: line_blocks

A line block is a sequence of lines beginning with a vertical bar (|) followed by a space.
The division into lines will be preserved in the output, as will any leading spaces; oth‐
erwise, the lines will be formatted as markdown. This is useful for verse and addresses:

| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718

The lines can be hard-wrapped if needed, but the continuation line must begin with a
space.

| The Right Honorable Most Venerable and Righteous Samuel L.
Constable, Jr.
| 200 Main St.
| Berkeley, CA 94718

This syntax is borrowed from reStructuredText.

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, sub‐
sequent 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
+ broccoli
+ 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 continua‐
tion 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

Extension: fancy_lists

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.[1]

The fancy_lists extension also allows '#' to be used as an ordered list marker in place of
a numeral:

#. one
#. two

Extension: startnum

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 sub‐
list 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
Extension: definition_lists

Pandoc supports definition lists, using a syntax inspired by PHP Markdown Extra and
reStructuredText:[2]

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 defi‐
nitions 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
Extension: example_lists

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 docu‐
ment. 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. Con‐
sider 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 mark‐
down_strict format 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

{ 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
Four kinds of tables may be used. The first three kinds presuppose the use of a
fixed-width font, such as Courier. The fourth kind can be used with proportionally spaced
fonts, as it does not require lining up columns.

Simple tables
Extension: simple_tables, table_captions

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:[3]

· 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
Extension: multiline_tables, table_captions

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
Extension: grid_tables, table_captions

Grid tables look like this:

: Sample grid table.

The row of =s separates the header from the table body, and can be omitted for a header‐
less table. The cells of grid tables may contain arbitrary block elements (multiple para‐
graphs, 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.

Pipe tables
Extension: pipe_tables, table_captions

Pipe tables look like this:

| Right | Left | Default | Center |
|------:|:-----|---------|:------:|
| 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| 123 | 123 | 123 | 123 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |

: Demonstration of simple table syntax.

The syntax is the same as in PHP markdown extra. The beginning and ending pipe characters
are optional, but pipes are required between all columns. The colons indicate column
alignment as shown. The header can be omitted, but the horizontal line must still be
included, as it defines column alignments.

Since the pipes indicate column boundaries, columns need not be vertically aligned, as
they are in the above example. So, this is a perfectly legal (though ugly) pipe table:

fruit| price
-----|-----:
apple|2.05
pear|1.37
orange|3.09

The cells of pipe tables cannot contain block elements like paragraphs and lists, and can‐
not span multiple lines.

Note: Pandoc also recognizes pipe tables of the following form, as can produced by Emacs'
orgtbl-mode:

| One | Two |
|-----+-------|
| my | table |
| is | nice |

The difference is that + is used instead of |. Other orgtbl features are not supported.
In particular, to get non-default column alignment, you'll need to add colons as above.

TITLE BLOCK
Extension: pandoc_title_block

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, foot‐
notes, etc.).

Title blocks will always be parsed, but they will affect the output only when the --stand‐
alone (-s) option is chosen. In HTML output, titles will appear twice: once in the docu‐
ment 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.

YAML METADATA BLOCK
Extension: yaml_metadata_block

A YAML metadata block is a valid YAML object, delimited by a line of three hyphens (---)
at the top and a line of three hyphens (---) or three dots (...) at the bottom. A YAML
metadata block may occur anywhere in the document, but if it is not at the beginning, it
must be preceded by a blank line.

Metadata will be taken from the fields of the YAML object and added to any existing docu‐
ment metadata. Metadata can contain lists and objects (nested arbitrarily), but all
string scalars will be interpreted as markdown. Fields with names ending in an underscore
will be ignored by pandoc. (They may be given a role by external processors.)

A document may contain multiple metadata blocks. The metadata fields will be combined
through a left-biased union: if two metadata blocks attempt to set the same field, the
value from the first block will be taken.

Note that YAML escaping rules must be followed. Thus, for example, if a title contains a
colon, it must be quoted. The pipe character (|) can be used to begin an indented block
that will be interpreted literally, without need for escaping. This form is necessary
when the field contains blank lines:

---
title: 'This is the title: it contains a colon'
author:
- name: Author One
affiliation: University of Somewhere
- name: Author Two
affiliation: University of Nowhere
tags: [nothing, nothingness]
abstract: |
This is the abstract.

It consists of two paragraphs.
...

Template variables will be set automatically from the metadata. Thus, for example, in
writing HTML, the variable abstract will be set to the HTML equivalent of the markdown in
the abstract field:

<p>This is the abstract.</p>
<p>It consists of two paragraphs.</p>

Note: The author variable in the default templates expects a simple list or string. To
use the structured authors in the example, you would need a custom template. For example:

$for(author)$
$if(author.name)$
$author.name$$if(author.affiliation)$ ($author.affiliation$)$endif$
$else$
$author$
$endif$
$endfor$

BACKSLASH ESCAPES
Extension: all_symbols_escapable

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 fol‐
lowing characters to be backslash-escaped:

\`*_{}[]()>#+-.!

(However, if the markdown_strict format is used, 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 \&#160; or \&nbsp;.

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
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.

INLINE FORMATTING
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\*.

Extension: intraword_underscores

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
Extension: strikeout

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
Extension: superscript, subscript

Superscripts may be written by surrounding the superscripted text by ^ characters; sub‐
scripts 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 con‐
texts:

This is a backslash followed by an asterisk: `\*`.

Extension: inline_code_attributes

Attributes can be attached to verbatim text, just as with fenced code blocks:

`<$>`{.haskell}

MATH
Extension: tex_math_dollars

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.

FictionBook2
If the --webtex option is used, formulas are rendered as images using Google Charts
or other compatible web service, downloaded and embedded in the e-book. Otherwise,
they will appear verbatim.

HTML, Slidy, DZSlides, S5, EPUB
The way math is rendered in HTML will depend on the command-line options selected:

1. 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.

2. 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.)

3. 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.

4. If the --mimetex option is used, the mimeTeX CGI script will be called to gener‐
ate images for each TeX formula. This should work in all browsers. The --mime‐
tex 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.

5. 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

6. 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 speci‐
fied, the Google Chart API will be used
(http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=tx&chl=).

7. If the --mathjax option is used, TeX math will be displayed between $...$ (for
inline math) or \[...\] (for display math) and put in <span> tags with class
math. The MathJax script will be used to render it as formulas.

RAW HTML
Extension: raw_html

Markdown allows you to insert raw HTML (or DocBook) anywhere in a document (except verba‐
tim contexts, where <, >, and & are interpreted literally). (Technically this is not an
extension, since standard markdown allows it, but it has been made an extension so that it
can be disabled if desired.)

The raw HTML is passed through unchanged in HTML, S5, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, EPUB,
Markdown, and Textile output, and suppressed in other formats.

Extension: markdown_in_html_blocks

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 the markdown_strict format is used; 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

whereas Markdown.pl will preserve it as is.

There is one exception to this rule: text between <script> and <style> tags is not inter‐
preted 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
Extension: raw_tex

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 mark‐
down.

Inline LaTeX is ignored in output formats other than Markdown, LaTeX, and ConTeXt.

LATEX MACROS
Extension: latex_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 fol‐
lowing 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 AT green.ham>

Inline links
An inline link consists of the link text in square brackets, followed by the URL in paren‐
theses. (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 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

Note: In Markdown.pl and most other markdown implementations, reference link definitions
cannot occur in nested constructions such as list items or block quotes. Pandoc lifts
this arbitrary seeming restriction. So the following is fine in pandoc, though not in
most other implementations:

> My block [quote].
>
> [quote]: /foo

Internal links
To link to another section of the same document, use the automatically generated identi‐
fier (see Header identifiers in HTML, LaTeX, and ConTeXt, below). For example:

See the [Introduction](#introduction).

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:

![la lune](lalune.jpg "Voyage to the moon")

![movie reel]

[movie reel]: movie.gif

Pictures with captions
Extension: implicit_figures

An image occurring by itself in a paragraph will be rendered as a figure with a cap‐
tion.[4] (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.

![This is the caption](/url/of/image.png)

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:

![This image won't be a figure](/url/of/image.png)\

FOOTNOTES
Extension: footnotes

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.).

Extension: inline_notes

Inline footnotes are also allowed (though, unlike regular notes, they cannot contain mul‐
tiple 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
Extension: citations

Using an external filter, pandoc-citeproc, pandoc can automatically generate citations and
a bibliography in a number of styles. Basic usage is

pandoc --filter pandoc-citeproc myinput.txt

In order to use this feature, you will need to specify a bibliography file using the bib‐
liography metadata field in a YAML metadata section. The bibliography may have any of
these formats:

Format File extension
───────────────────────────────
MODS .mods
BibLaTeX .bib
BibTeX .bibtex
RIS .ris
EndNote .enl
EndNote XML .xml
ISI .wos
MEDLINE .medline
Copac .copac
JSON citeproc .json

Note that .bib can generally be used with both BibTeX and BibLaTeX files, but you can use
.bibtex to force BibTeX.

Alternatively you can use a references field in the document's YAML metadata. This should
include an array of YAML-encoded references, for example:

---
references:
- id: fenner2012a
title: One-click science marketing
author:
- family: Fenner
given: Martin
container-title: Nature Materials
volume: 11
URL: 'http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat3283'
DOI: 10.1038/nmat3283
issue: 4
publisher: Nature Publishing Group
page: 261-263
type: article-journal
issued:
year: 2012
month: 3
...

(The program mods2yaml, which comes with pandoc-citeproc, can help produce these from a
MODS reference collection.)

By default, pandoc-citeproc will use a Chicago author-date format for citations and refer‐
ences. To use another style, you will need to specify a CSL 1.0 style file in the csl
metadata field. 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 option‐
ally have a prefix, a locator, and a suffix. The citation key must begin with a letter or
_, and may contain alphanumerics, _, and internal punctuation characters (:.#$%&-+?<>~/).
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 docu‐
ment. Normally, you will want to end your document with an appropriate header:

last paragraph...

# References

The bibliography will be inserted after this header. Note that the unnumbered class will
be added to this header, so that the section will not be numbered.

If you want to include items in the bibliography without actually citing them in the body
text, you can define a dummy nocite metadata field and put the citations there:

---
nocite:
| @item1, @item2
...

@item3

In this example, the document will contain a citation for item3 only, but the bibliography
will contain entries for item1, item2, and item3.

NON-PANDOC EXTENSIONS
The following markdown syntax extensions are not enabled by default in pandoc, but may be
enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name, where EXTENSION is the name of the exten‐
sion. Thus, for example, markdown+hard_line_breaks is markdown with hard line breaks.

Extension: lists_without_preceding_blankline
Allow a list to occur right after a paragraph, with no intervening blank space.

Extension: hard_line_breaks
Causes all newlines within a paragraph to be interpreted as hard line breaks instead of
spaces.

Extension: ignore_line_breaks
Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being treated as spaces or
as hard line breaks. This option is intended for use with East Asian languages where spa‐
ces are not used between words, but text is divided into lines for readability.

Extension: tex_math_single_backslash
Causes anything between $ and $ to be interpreted as inline TeX math, and anything
between \[ and \] to be interpreted as display TeX math. Note: a drawback of this exten‐
sion is that it precludes escaping ( and [.

Extension: tex_math_double_backslash
Causes anything between \$ and \$ to be interpreted as inline TeX math, and anything
between \\[ and \\] to be interpreted as display TeX math.

Extension: markdown_attribute
By default, pandoc interprets material inside block-level tags as markdown. This exten‐
sion changes the behavior so that markdown is only parsed inside block-level tags if the
tags have the attribute markdown=1.

Extension: mmd_title_block
Enables a MultiMarkdown style title block at the top of the document, for example:

Title: My title
Author: John Doe
Date: September 1, 2008
Comment: This is a sample mmd title block, with
a field spanning multiple lines.

See the MultiMarkdown documentation for details. If pandoc_title_block or yaml_meta‐
data_block is enabled, it will take precedence over mmd_title_block.

Extension: abbreviations
Parses PHP Markdown Extra abbreviation keys, like

*[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language

Note that the pandoc document model does not support abbreviations, so if this extension
is enabled, abbreviation keys are simply skipped (as opposed to being parsed as para‐
graphs).

Extension: autolink_bare_uris
Makes all absolute URIs into links, even when not surrounded by pointy braces <...>.

Extension: ascii_identifiers
Causes the identifiers produced by auto_identifiers to be pure ASCII. Accents are
stripped off of accented latin letters, and non-latin letters are omitted.

Extension: link_attributes
Parses multimarkdown style key-value attributes on link and image references. Note that
pandoc's internal document model provides nowhere to put these, so they are presently just
ignored.

Extension: mmd_header_identifiers
Parses multimarkdown style header identifiers (in square brackets, after the header but
before any trailing #s in an ATX header).

MARKDOWN VARIANTS
In addition to pandoc's extended markdown, the following markdown variants are supported:

markdown_phpextra (PHP Markdown Extra)
footnotes, pipe_tables, raw_html, markdown_attribute, fenced_code_blocks, defini‐
tion_lists, intraword_underscores, header_attributes, abbreviations.

markdown_github (Github-flavored Markdown)
pipe_tables, raw_html, tex_math_single_backslash, fenced_code_blocks,
fenced_code_attributes, auto_identifiers, ascii_identifiers, backtick_code_blocks,
autolink_bare_uris, intraword_underscores, strikeout, hard_line_breaks

markdown_mmd (MultiMarkdown)
pipe_tables raw_html, markdown_attribute, link_attributes, raw_tex, tex_math_dou‐
ble_backslash, intraword_underscores, mmd_title_block, footnotes, definition_lists,
all_symbols_escapable, implicit_header_references, auto_identifiers,
mmd_header_identifiers

markdown_strict (Markdown.pl)
raw_html

EXTENSIONS WITH FORMATS OTHER THAN MARKDOWN
Some of the extensions discussed above can be used with formats other than markdown:

· auto_identifiers can be used with latex, rst, mediawiki, and textile input (and is used
by default).

· tex_math_dollars, tex_math_single_backslash, and tex_math_double_backslash can be used
with html input. (This is handy for reading web pages formatted using MathJax, for
example.)

NOTES
[1]
The point of this rule is to ensure that normal paragraphs starting with people's ini‐
tials, like

B. Russell was an English philosopher.

do not get treated as list items.

This rule will not prevent

from being interpreted as a list item. In this case, a backslash escape can be used:

(C\) 2007 Joe Smith

[2]
I have also been influenced by the suggestions of David Wheeler.

[3]
This scheme is due to Michel Fortin, who proposed it on the Markdown discussion list.

[4]
This feature is not yet implemented for RTF, OpenDocument, or ODT. In those formats,
you'll just get an image in a paragraph by itself, with no caption.