Using Pandoc

[@pauldulaney3501]

Two things make this an excellent presentation: 1. Audio quality is superb -- you must have a nice mic. 2. You don't assume the viewer knows anything. So often techies think it is a badge of honor to leave nubies behind. Thank you!

[@pratikmahamuni4856]

The fact that you explained the command line by those highlights and what it does, amazing.. that's patience and good teaching habits, in my opinion!

[@carolinealcock2211]

Simply superb. I taught academic writing for decades and none of my presentations were as good as this.

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Caroline Alcock Thank you so much. You made my day! 😊

[@AmitChristian]

Nicholas, must say, it is one of the most well-thought out, highest quality and user friendly video I have seen. I see lots of tutorials and HowTo. I know this is kind of old video. But you should really make more videos. Subscribed.

[@stephaniepietz2103]

What an great intro! Clear, to the point, and only 10 mins!! I was asked to check out this "Pandoc" tool today and now I feel I've gone from knowing nothing to knowing enough to do something! :D Thank you so much!

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

That's so great! Thanks for sharing 😁

[@SissyFlower5]

Boss needed my latex files in html. Really appreciate this video, thanks! For anyone reading this who needs to do the same thing as me, use the --webtex option to get rid of the "Could not convert TeX math" error

[@matiasrichetta728]

Regarding this video (but it suits well to all your tutorials), your explanations are crystal clear. Thank you very much!

[@NataliiaVostrosablina-b3n]

Thank you so much for such a clear and good explanation! I finished my project successfully thanks to your video ^^

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Great to hear! Congratulations on finishing!

[@xiaofangcai1867]

Very detailed explanation! I love the way that you unfolded the codes. Some updates when I was trying this today. Now some of the syntaxes have changed. I tried today and the updated line looks like this: pandoc test.txt --bibliography testlibrary.bib -smart -o success.rtf (only 1 dash before smart, no -s anymore, and no --normalize because normalization is now automatic)

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Thanks for flagging those changes for me! I'll have to make an updated video at some point :)

[@WillemAartVanDorpen]

Very clear and high quality presentation 👍🏻

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Thanks!

[@BritskNguyen]

It's unbelievable this video is for free

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Brytsk Nguyen 😊 pay it forward! Teach someone what you learned in the video.

[@floriankuck9603]

Great video. You helped me a lot.

[@TheSergeBird]

For Windows users that do not want to use the command line every time, here are some brief instructions on making a batch file that you can just drag your text file onto: Copy this: pandoc "%~1" --bibliography "insert_bib_filepath_here" -s -o "%~n1.rtf" Paste it into a text document. Replace "insert_bib_filepath_here" with your bib file's name (if it's in the same directory) or filepath. Save as a .bat file. Now just drag and drop your original document onto the .bat file and your converted file will appear in the same directory as the original document. It will even have the same name (which you can change by replacing "%~n1" with your desired name).

[@TheMyth2.9]

Good tutorial. The most important thing for me was to learn how to do this in Harvard. We still need Zotero to add the citations right?

[@KevinOMalleyisonlysmallreally]

If you were to update this with the new version of pandoc and talk about how to use templates on the mac it'd be amazing. I've followed this fully and gotten some results but I can't format my doc in APA style.

[@matthewschechter6364]

Awesome instructional videos! I am super excited to start implementing markdown and pandoc into my grad school life. Just an FYI I had errors running the pandoc command you mention in the video... until I brew installed pandoc-citeproc. I may have missed a step in the video, but otherwise I would add this additional installation to your instructions in the future. Thanks!

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Matthew Schechter Glad to hear. Good luck on your writing!

[@mittyxxx8791]

thank you my friend! very helpful indeed!!!

[@RobinTurner]

Really good explanation. The only problem is that some of the commands are out of date (-normalize doesn't exist any more because it is done by default, --smart is now replaced by +smart).

[@bobvance9519]

I entered your command as: pandoc SVDpaper_Copy.tex --bibliography testlibrary.bib --smart -s -o SVDpaper_journal.rtf After entering your command, I got: --smart/-S has been removed. Use +smart or -smart extension instead. For example: pandoc -f markdown+smart -t markdown-smart. So I changed "--smart" to "-smart", which gave me: Unknown option -m. Unknown option -a. When I changed it to "+smart", it gave me: pandoc: +smart: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory) Any help?

[@tommisaltiola]

pandoc example.md --bibliography example.bib -s -o example.rtf works. With latest pandoc. I had to remove --normalize and --smart as pandoc said that they have been removed

[@pepe21101]

Great video 👍 thank you, exactly what I was looking for

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Glad to help!

[@Markovisch]

You simply accept the terms and conditions for installing Pandoc without reading them? :O

[@stefanhansen5882]

How could anyone give this a thumbs down???

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Thanks! 😄

[@rachidnajib1013]

Hello thank you for this video, my latex file is compiled only with xelatex how to convert it to epub

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

I would check out the documentation for pandoc to see if there's an option for that pandoc.org/MANUAL.html

[@stefanhansen5882]

I followed this and everything looks good, but there are no references inserted. How come? Thanks!

[@stefanhansen5882]

A year later, and I tried again without luck. Any explanation?

[@afelandr]

how the figures convert to rtf or docx?

[@estelleosman4184]

Hello, I wanted to know if Pandoc could convert latex files to word files with a great accuracy. I made some math textbook for my students but the other teacher wants to work with Word. It's high school math so there are lots of square roots, functions, tikZ drawnings,... I tried to convert the PDF it using Adobe but it's kind of messy to make some adjustments.

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Yes, you can do that conversion with pandoc, but I'm not sure how good it'll be. One option would be to collaborate in a word doc, but using markdown syntax. So you'd be able to do latex formulas. But, honestly, it's going to be hard to do all the things that a math textbook would require if you're not using latex. Have you tried Overleaf? That might be a good option.

[@DiomasPlay]

Thank you!!!

[@Chiramisudo]

This was a great intro. Can you please cover the elusive topic of converting to PDF? Specifically in my case, from Markdown. I would expect this to work with Pandoc out of the box on Ubuntu, but it does not. :(

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Thanks! I'm not sure about Ubuntu, but I believe you need to have LaTeX installed in order to convert to PDF.

[@Chiramisudo]

@@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody Come to find out, that is the case. I was trying to be conservative because the full LaTeX is freaking HUGE, but unfortunately there seemed to be no other way. After hours of struggle, I finally gave up and ended up installing around 1 GIGABYTE of freaking packages just to convert a stupid Markdown to PDF. Absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. Someone needs to work on the modularity of LaTeX in a major way!!!

[@sidharths4096]

Is there a wrapper for c#?

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

I'm not sure. Not that I know of.

[@fennecbesixdouze1794]

What program did you use to open the .txt file @5:00?

[@nicholascoupland9944]

Byword

[@martinbishop1469]

Nicholas, thanks for these videos; they are immensely useful and lower the barrier to entry into the markdown writing process. I am using the SB3 - Zotero - Pandoc combination to write and convert my .md files into .rtf format. I have added Better BibLaTeX onto Zotero as suggested to produce my citations keys. All this is working great; but I need a different citation style. As you mentioned, the default citation style for Pandoc is Chicago. You also mentioned that there is a way to change this (my field uses APA 6th). How would I go about doing this? I cannot seem to find a straightforward answer on the Pandoc website.

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

It's great to hear that you're now using Markdown for your writing! To use a different CSL, include the --csl command after the --filter pandoc-citeproc command. Then, follow --csl with the file path for the CSL file you want to use. If you're using Zotero, the CSL for APA should already be on your computer. Just search for "apa.csl" and you should be able to find the file path. Good luck!

[@martinbishop1469]

That did it, thanks much! You know, there's not much of a centralized support community for academics who write in markdown. Many of my colleagues like the idea conceptually but are rather intimidated at the prospect. Have you considered starting a Slack community workspace for markdown enthusiasts?

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

That is an excellent idea! I just created the community: researchhacking.slack.com. You can sign up here: join.slack.com/t/researchhacking/shared_invite/enQtMjk1NzIyODQ2MjU4LTRhNjIyZTI5NDg3OTRkMDY2NDhkZGY3ZTQ0NDZmNDIyZTEwZGMyNDI4NTUyNzk5M2VjOGEwOTIyMDZmMTQ4NDE

[@Maha_s1999]

@@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody This link does not seem to work anymore - has this community been retired?

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

@@Maha_s1999 sorry! Here's the correct link: launchpass.com/researchhacking

[@ishanc9438]

Hi Nicholas, thank you for this crisp introduction to pandocs. I have a question regarding its usability in very specific situation. Is it possible to convert a pdf to a word(docx) document using pandox?

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Not sure! I suspect that this wouldn't work very well because PDFs have a lot more information in them than just the text. In fact, some of them don't even have the text at all! When I need to convert from PDF to DOCX, I use Adobe Acrobat Pro. That would be my recommendation.

[@girishkdesh]

Dear Nicholus, I want to learn pandoc to its fullest. What do I need to know prior and where should I head to get nice video tutorials like the one you have created here. Thanks for the video. I look forward for your most advance videos. I have some questions too. If you allow me to ask, I shall like to contact you for those. Thanks a lot again.

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Glad you like the video! The best place to go for Pandoc info is the Pandoc website. The address is in the description for this video. I don't know of any video tutorials beyond what I've done here, but let me know if you find something useful. Good luck!

[@sayanjitb]

What is standalone document?

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

It's own file. I'm saying you want to save a file 😊

[@sayanjitb]

@@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody thank you so much , i am glad u replied me in 3 years old video comment :-)

[@luishsteuer1660]

amaziing thank you

[@ousseliasbit7752]

Im facing a problem with pandoc can you please help. I have a text file that has long strings which is in the same line. for example, i have 150 words on 1 line and when i convert the txt file to pdf, lines doesnt fully appear; only half of the line is shown in pdf

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

How do you want the long string of text to be formatted? Is it in code block?

[@ousseliasbit7752]

doesnt matter. as long as everything appears in pdf

[@VulcanOnWheels]

I do like your video, but the syntax for the pandoc command has changed since you made this video.

[@radioncreation]

hi Nicholas what is the name of font You use look like type writing ? Can u give me the name ?

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Any monospace font will work if you want it to look like a typewriter. I generally use Courrier, and I highly recommend Courrier Prime. You can download it here: quoteunquoteapps.com/courierprime/

[@Maha_s1999]

@@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody Fantastic - thanks

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Thanks, @@Maha_s1999!

[@CanDoSo_org]

cool

[@nicholascoupland9944]

Hi Nicholas. Please could you tell me which app you are using to open and edit the test.txt file (from around 5:00) in the video? Thanks.

[@NicholasCifuentesGoodbody]

Hi Nicholas. The app I use in the video is called Byword: bywordapp.com

[@nicholascoupland9944]

Thank you.

[@AnaSoles]

Better title could be Using Pandoc on MacOsx