A Cornell-style meeting notes template for LaTeX. Each page has a header (topic, date, attendees, time), a large notes panel with a cue column beside it, and a summary band below both, all blank for handwriting on a printout.
Header details, notes content, and the page layout itself aren't edited in
the .tex file directly — they're generated from YAML and Markdown files,
so day-to-day use is just editing yaml/notes.yaml / md/notes.md /
settings/page.yaml and running make. The yaml file is paired with the
markdown file by name: md/<stem>.md goes with yaml/<stem>.yaml.
The page layout (notes panel, cue column, and summary band) follows the Cornell Note-Taking System, developed by Walter Pauk at Cornell University and first published in his book How to Study in College (Houghton Mifflin, 1962). This LaTeX/Markdown build pipeline implementing that layout was created by Todd Takala; it isn't affiliated with Cornell University or the Pauk estate.
- A TeX Live (or similar) install with
pdflatexandlatexmk, plus thetikz,xcolor,geometry,hyperref,amssymb,longtable, andbooktabspackages - Python 3 (standard library only, no pip packages required, for
make builditself — the optional Streamlit editor app below needspip install -r requirements.txt) - pandoc, for converting
md/notes.mdto LaTeX
make buildThis regenerates the header, content, and page settings from
yaml/notes.yaml / md/notes.md / settings/page.yaml, compiles
settings/template.tex, and cleans up pdflatex's intermediate files
afterward. The result lands in pdf/, named after yaml/notes.yaml's
topic and date fields (e.g. pdf/Weekly-Sync_2026-08-23.pdf) — see
Naming the output PDF below.
A browser UI for the whole pipeline above — edit the header fields and a markdown file side by side with a rendered PDF, without touching the CLI.
pip install -r requirements.txt
make appthen open the URL streamlit prints (defaults to
http://localhost:8501).
The page has a collapsible Header section (topic/date/attendees/
time) at the top. Location lives under Topic, and start/end time (12-hour,
with an AM/PM toggle) + a searchable IANA timezone dropdown live under Date,
all stacked below their respective field; the dropdown to switch between the
files in md/ lives under Attendees. date is a calendar date picker, still stored in
yaml/<stem>.yaml as a plain YYYY-MM-DD string, same as editing it by
hand. The start/end/timezone group composes into the time field's usual
"HH:MM--HH:MM" string, now with the zone's abbreviation appended (e.g.
"10:00--10:30 PDT"); the dropdown's actual IANA zone name (e.g.
"America/Los_Angeles") is stored separately in the timezone field, so
reopening a file restores the exact zone in the picker rather than just
the abbreviation. The Location field is stored directly in its own
location field rather than folded into time — settings/template.tex
recombines the two (as "10:00--10:30 PDT, Zoom") when it typesets the
Time row, and scripts/topic_slug.py includes location in the output
PDF's filename (see Naming the output PDF).
Entries written before timezone/location existed, or hand-edited with
the old "HH:MM--HH:MM TZ, location" convention, still load into the
picker correctly — and get migrated to the two dedicated fields the next
time they're saved from the app.
The header form is per markdown file — each md/<stem>.md has its own
paired yaml/<stem>.yaml, so switching files in the dropdown also switches
the header fields shown, and creating a file creates a blank paired yaml
alongside it (deleting a file removes its yaml too).
Below the Header section is an Assets expander (labeled with the
current file count) that manages the assets/ folder used for images and
linked documents (see Images and linked documents
below): it lists each file with an image thumbnail (where applicable), a
copyable assets/<name> path to paste into your Markdown, and its size, plus
an uploader to add new files and a delete confirmation per file.
Below that, a centered row of New file/Delete file buttons (to
create or delete a file) sits next to Render and Download PDF.
Render saves both the selected file's header and its markdown content to
disk and runs make build for you, showing a success/failure message once
it's done. Download PDF (disabled until a PDF exists) downloads the current
one under its actual output filename. Below that, the markdown editor
(left) and the resulting PDF (right) sit side by side,
matched in height so their tops and bottoms align; switching files preserves
each file's unsaved edits for the rest of the session, though only Render
writes them to disk.
The editor itself is CodeMirror, with syntax
highlighting for Markdown, inline/raw HTML, and fenced ```html/
```latex code blocks, and — the reason it's CodeMirror rather than a
more typical embedded code-editor widget — real support for the browser's
own spellcheck: misspelled words get the usual squiggly underline, and
right-click → "Add to dictionary" uses the browser's own per-profile
dictionary, so it's remembered on future visits with no app-side state at
all. Its JS is vendored (app/components/code_editor/frontend/bundle.js)
rather than loaded from a CDN, so the app works offline; if you edit
app/components/code_editor/frontend_src/editor.js, rebuild it with:
cd app/components/code_editor/frontend_src
npm install
npm run buildA toolbar sits above the editor, grouped by kind:
- Bold, italic,
strikethrough, inline math ($...$), superscript, subscript — wrap the current selection (or a placeholder, if nothing's selected) in the matching Markdown syntax; the wrapped/placeholder text stays selected afterward so you can type straight over it. - Heading — cycles the cursor's current line through
#→##→###→ no heading on repeated clicks. - Quote, bullet list, numbered list, task list — toggle a per-line prefix
(
>,-,1./2./…,- [ ]) across every line the selection spans; clicking again on already-prefixed lines removes it. - Inline code, fenced code block, Link, Table — code wraps like bold/italic
above; Link inserts
[text](https://)with the URL placeholder selected; Table inserts a 2-column pipe-table skeleton with its header placeholder selected. - HR, display math (
$$...$$) — insert a horizontal rule or a display-math line. - ^, ^^, PB — insert a cue-column note, a
summary-band note, or a
<!-- pagebreak -->directive on a new line right after the cursor's current line.^/^^'s page-number placeholder (defaulting to1) is pre-selected, so typing the real page number immediately overwrites it — the editor has no way to know which rendered PDF page the cursor's content will actually land on, since that's decided later by automatic pagination, so1is just as good a starting guess as any (and an out-of-range page number still renders on the nearest real page rather than vanishing, same as typing the directive by hand).
The toolbar's ~20 buttons wrap onto a second row if the editor pane isn't wide enough to fit them all on one; the editor and PDF panes stay matched in height either way.
The editor also offers three autocomplete sources, triggered by what you type:
- Typing
```at the start of a line suggests a fenced code-block language tag (html,latex/tex,python,javascript,bash,json,yaml,text). Onlyhtmlandlatex/texget real syntax highlighting in the editor — and, like every fenced-code tag, none of them get highlighted in the built PDF either, sincescripts/markdown_to_pages.pyruns pandoc with--no-highlight— so the rest are just readable labels for the block's content, the same rolenotes-example.md's own```pythonblock plays. - Typing
](inside a link or image target suggests filenames fromassets/(asassets/<name>), so you don't have to remember exact names. - Typing
/at the start of a line or after whitespace (not mid-URL, sohttps://doesn't trigger it) offers snippet commands for everything the toolbar buttons above do (/bold,/table,/task,/link,/image,/cue,/summary,/pagebreak, etc.) — accepting one behaves exactly like clicking its toolbar button.
yaml/notes.yaml— the header fields (topic,date,attendees,time,timezone,location). Applied to every page automatically. Paired with its markdown file by name:md/<stem>.mdgoes withyaml/<stem>.yaml.md/notes.md— the notes panel content, written in Markdown.
topic: Weekly Sync
date: 2026-08-23
attendees: Alice, Bob, Priya
time: "10:00--10:30"
timezone: "America/Los_Angeles"
location: "Zoom"timezone and location are both optional. timezone is only meaningful
to the app's picker (see Streamlit editor app) —
it holds the IANA zone name behind time's abbreviation and isn't typeset
itself. location is typeset: settings/template.tex appends it to
time (as "10:00--10:30, Zoom") on the Time row, and
scripts/topic_slug.py folds it into the output PDF's filename (see
Naming the output PDF).
**Agenda**
- Status update on milestone 2
- Blockers from last sprint
- Next stepsRun make build again and both files flow through to the PDF.
The
md/notes.mdshipped in this repo is currently a test file exercising the Markdown syntax this pipeline supports — formatting, lists, tables, code blocks, math, images, and so on — rather than real meeting content. Replace it with your own notes; until you do, it doubles as a working reference for what's supported (its HTML comments also note what isn't, and why).
The notes panel has a fixed height, so md/notes.md is measured and
automatically split across as many pages as it needs — you don't have to
plan page breaks by hand. If you want to force a break at a specific point
anyway (e.g. to start a new topic on its own page), put a line containing
only
<!-- pagebreak -->
between two sections.
A line of the form
^<page> <text>
e.g. ^1 This is my question for Cue, adds <text> as a bullet point in
the cue column of that page number (the actual rendered PDF page,
matching the "Page N" printed in each page's header) instead of the main
notes panel — handy for questions or keywords next to the notes they
relate to. The directive line itself isn't printed. <text> goes through
the same Markdown/LaTeX pipeline as the main content, so it can use
inline formatting (**bold**, etc.); multiple entries targeting the same
page each become their own bullet, in document order.
A line of the form
^^<page> <text>
e.g. ^^1 This is my summary for page 1, adds <text> as an item in an
ordered (numbered) list in that page's summary band — the strip at
the bottom of the page — instead of the main notes panel. The band is
split into two side-by-side columns: text starts in the left column,
word-wrapped to half the band's width, and if it's too long to fit, the
overflow continues at the top of the right column instead of running
past the band. Otherwise this behaves just like cue-column text: the
directive line isn't printed, and <text> goes through the same
Markdown/LaTeX pipeline as the main content.
The two directives are easy to tell apart even in shorthand: one caret
(^1 ...) is the cue column, two carets (^^1 ...) is the summary band.
<page> doesn't have to be a valid page number: anything below 1 (e.g.
^0 or ^-3) is clamped to page 1, and anything past the document's
actual last page (e.g. ^99 in a 3-page document) renders on that last
page instead — so a directive never silently vanishes just because the
page count changed or was miscounted.
settings/template.tex just does \input{\cnBuildDir/cornell-content.tex},
which holds one cornellFlow environment per md/notes.md section.
(\cnBuildDir defaults to build, overridden per-invocation by the
Makefile's BUILDDIR — see make build-example below and the Streamlit
app's own scratch directory — so isolated builds actually compile their own
generated content instead of whatever's currently in the default build/.)
Every resulting page shares the same header from yaml/notes.yaml and
numbers itself automatically (top-right corner of the header box).
Put images and any other files md/notes.md references in assets/, then
reference them with paths relative to the repo root:
See the [reference notes](assets/reference-notes.txt) for background.Images are auto-scaled to fit the notes panel width, so a full-resolution
screenshot won't overflow the page. Links are real, clickable PDF links
(via hyperref) — for a local file like the example above, a PDF viewer
resolves it relative to the output PDF's own location on disk, which is
pdf/ rather than the repo root; scripts/markdown_to_pages.py
rewrites each relative link with a ../ prefix so it still resolves
correctly (web URLs are left untouched).
.
├── yaml/
│ └── notes.yaml Header fields (source of truth). Paired with
│ md/notes.md by filename stem -- see Editing a page
│ above.
├── md/
│ └── notes.md Notes panel content, in Markdown (source of
│ truth).
├── assets/ Images & other files md/notes.md links to (source of
truth).
├── docs/
│ └── page-layout.drawio Editable diagram source for the README's
│ layout image (assets/page-layout.drawio.png);
│ edit in draw.io/diagrams.net and re-export the
│ PNG by hand.
├── settings/
│ ├── template.tex Template + \cornellpage / \cornellFlow macros;
│ │ \input's the generated files below and compiles
│ │ to a PDF.
│ └── page.yaml Page geometry & layout proportions (source of
│ truth).
├── scripts/
│ ├── simple_yaml.py Shared minimal YAML parser used by the
│ │ scripts below.
│ ├── yaml_to_header.py yaml/notes.yaml -> build/cornell-header.tex
│ ├── markdown_to_pages.py md/notes.md (+pandoc) -> build/cornell-
│ │ content.tex, build/cornell-cue.tex,
│ │ build/cornell-summary.tex
│ ├── yaml_to_settings.py settings/page.yaml -> build/cornell-page-
│ │ settings.tex
│ └── topic_slug.py yaml/notes.yaml's topic+date -> output PDF's
│ filename
├── build/ Generated .tex fragments (gitignored, rebuilt by
make).
├── pdf/ Output PDF (see Naming the output PDF below).
├── app/
│ ├── streamlit_app.py The Streamlit editor app; see Streamlit editor
│ │ app above.
│ ├── pipeline.py Header/markdown file I/O + `make build`
│ │ invocation for the app.
│ └── components/
│ └── code_editor/ CodeMirror-based editor component
│ (markdown/HTML/LaTeX highlighting + native
│ browser spellcheck).
├── requirements.txt Python deps for the app (`streamlit`); not needed for
`make build`.
└── Makefile `make build` / `make app` / `make clean` / `make
distclean`.
Everything under build/ is generated, not source — don't hand-edit those
files, and don't commit them (already gitignored). Each generator script
can also be run directly if you want to regenerate one file without the
others:
python3 scripts/yaml_to_header.py yaml/notes.yaml build/cornell-header.tex
python3 scripts/markdown_to_pages.py md/notes.md build/cornell-content.tex build/cornell-cue.tex build/cornell-summary.tex
python3 scripts/yaml_to_settings.py settings/page.yaml build/cornell-page-settings.texmake build-example— buildsmd/notes-example.md/yaml/notes-example.yamlinstead ofmd/notes.md/yaml/notes.yaml, using its ownbuild/example/scratch directory so it never collides with (or goes stale against) a regularmake build. Useful for regenerating the reference PDF that demonstrates this pipeline's Markdown syntax without touching your own notes.make app— runs the Streamlit editor app.make clean— removes pdflatex's intermediate files, keeps the PDF.make distclean— also removes the generatedbuild/files and the PDF.
settings/page.yaml controls the page geometry and layout proportions —
no need to touch settings/template.tex itself:
paper: letterpaper
margin: 0.25in
header_height: 0.12
cue_width: 0.25
summary_height: 0.18
padding: 0.12in
border_inset: 2ptpaper,margin— passed straight to the LaTeXgeometrypackage, so any value it accepts works (e.g.paper: a4paper,margin: 20mm).header_height,cue_width,summary_height— sizing for the header band, right-hand cue column, and the summary band at the bottom of the page, each as a plain decimal fraction of the drawable page height/width.padding,border_inset— inner text padding and the safety margin that keeps thick strokes inside the printable area, each a LaTeX length.
Edit the file and run make build again; every page picks up the change
automatically. Under the hood this generates
build/cornell-page-settings.tex, the same pattern as the header and
content files above.
The PDF is written to pdf/ and named after yaml/notes.yaml's topic,
date, and location fields, not a fixed cornell-notes.pdf.
scripts/topic_slug.py slugifies each field — collapsing any run of
characters that aren't safe in a filename (spaces, punctuation, ...) to a
single hyphen — and joins them with an underscore, so:
topic: Weekly Sync
date: 2026-08-23
location: Zoomproduces pdf/Weekly-Sync_2026-08-23_Zoom.pdf. A blank/missing location
is dropped rather than leaving a trailing underscore, so entries without
one still produce pdf/Weekly-Sync_2026-08-23.pdf as before. Change
topic/date/location and run make build again to rename the output;
the previous PDF isn't deleted automatically.
MIT — see LICENSE.