Configuring navigation without YAML frontmatter in markdown files?

[morberg]

I have a document structure with pure markdown files used to generate both an HTML version with Jekyll and a PDF version with pandoc. My content is organized in folders where each folder represents a category/topic.

Is it possible to generate a hierarchical navigation structure without adding frontmatter to the markdown files?

I have no problems writing a script to generate what is needed, but I need to keep additional metadata outside of the markdown files themselves.

[pdmosses]

Yes, that seems to be possible:

• put your pure Markdown files in the _includes directory
• create the Jekyll files with the front matter for your navigation in docs
• use Liquid to include the former in the latter, e.g.:

---
layout: default
title: Test
parent: ...
---
{% include test.md %}

BTW, wouldn't the kramdown LaTeX converter give a closer match between the HTML and the PDFs than pandoc?

[morberg]

Thanks, I’ll give it a try!

I wasn’t aware of kramdown, but fidelity between HTML and PDF is not a goal. I prefer to produce a print version and HTML version that are as good as can be.

Using a simple and portable source file format has very high priority. My project started out 15-20 years ago in LaTeX using customized LaTeX styles. I have since moved on to plain markdown that can be reused in different tool chains and is easier to maintain.