Development has ceased on panzer. Over the years, pandoc has gained
powerful new functionality (e.g. the --metadata-file
option and Lua
filters) that means that 90% of what can be done with panzer can be done
with pandoc and some simple wrapper scripts. I no longer use panzer in
my own workflow for this reason.
If you would like to take over development of panzer, let me know.
panzer adds styles to pandoc. Styles provide a way to set all options for a pandoc document with one line (‘I want this document be an article/CV/notes/letter’).
You can think of styles as a level up in abstraction from a pandoc template. Styles are combinations of templates, metadata settings, pandoc command line options, and instructions to run filters, scripts and postprocessors. These settings can be customised on a per writer and per document basis. Styles can be combined and can bear inheritance relations to each other. panzer exposes a large amount of structured information to the external processes called by styles, allowing those processes to be both more powerful and themselves controllable via metadata (and hence also by styles). Styles simplify makefiles, bundling everything related to the look of the document in one place.
You can think of panzer as an exoskeleton that sits around pandoc and configures pandoc based on a single choice in your document.
To use a style, add a field with your style name to the yaml metadata block of your document:
style: Notes
Multiple styles can be supplied as a list:
style:
- Notes
- BoldHeadings
Styles are defined in a yaml file
(example).
The style definition file, plus associated executables, are placed in
the .panzer
directory in the user’s home folder
(example).
A style can also be defined inside the document’s metadata block:
---
style: Notes
styledef:
Notes:
all:
metadata:
numbersections: false
latex:
metadata:
numbersections: true
fontsize: 12pt
commandline:
columns: "`75`"
lua-filter:
- run: macroexpand.lua
filter:
- run: deemph.py
...
Style settings can be overridden by adding the appropriate field outside a style definition in the document’s metadata block:
---
style: Notes
numbersections: true
filter:
- run: smallcaps.py
commandline:
- pdf-engine: "`xelatex`"
...
pip3 install git+https://github.com/msprev/panzer
Requirements:
To upgrade existing installation:
pip3 install --upgrade git+https://github.com/msprev/panzer
On Arch Linux systems, the AUR package panzer-git can be used.
An issue has been reported using pip to install on Windows. If the method above does not work, use the alternative install method below.
git clone https://github.com/msprev/panzer
cd panzer
python3 setup.py install
To upgrade existing installation:
cd /path/to/panzer/directory/cloned
git pull
python3 setup.py install --force
Run panzer
on your document as you would pandoc
. If the document
lacks a style
field, this is equivalent to running pandoc
. If the
document has a style
field, panzer will invoke pandoc plus any
associated scripts, filters, and populate the appropriate metadata
fields.
panzer
accepts the same command line options as pandoc
. These
options are passed to the underlying instance of pandoc. pandoc command
line options can also be set via metadata.
panzer has additional command line options. These are prefixed by triple
dashes (---
). Run the command panzer -h
to see them:
-h, --help, ---help, ---h
show this help message and exit
-v, --version, ---version, ---v
show program's version number and exit
---quiet only print errors and warnings
---strict exit on first error
---panzer-support PANZER_SUPPORT
panzer user data directory
---pandoc PANDOC pandoc executable
---debug DEBUG filename to write .log and .json debug files
Panzer expects all input and output to be utf-8.
A style definition may consist of:
field | value | value type |
---|---|---|
parent |
parent(s) of style | MetaList or MetaInlines |
metadata |
default metadata fields | MetaMap |
commandline |
pandoc command line options | MetaMap |
template |
pandoc template | MetaInlines or MetaString |
preflight |
run before input doc is processed | MetaList |
filter |
pandoc filters | MetaList |
lua-filter |
pandoc lua filters | MetaList |
postprocess |
run on pandoc’s output | MetaList |
postflight |
run after output file written | MetaList |
cleanup |
run on exit irrespective of errors | MetaList |
Style definitions are hierarchically structured by name and writer.
Style names by convention should be MixedCase (MyNotes
) to avoid
confusion with other metadata fields. Writer names are the same as those
of the relevant pandoc writer (e.g. latex
, html
, docx
, etc.) A
special writer, all
, matches every writer.
-
parent
takes a list or single style. Children inherit the properties of their parents. Children may have multiple parents. -
metadata
contains default metadata set by the style. Any metadata field that can appear in a pandoc document can appear here. -
commandline
specifies pandoc’s command line options. -
template
is a pandoc template for the style. -
preflight
lists executables run before the document is processed. These are run after panzer reads the input, but before that input is sent to pandoc. -
filter
lists pandoc json filters. Filters gain two new properties from panzer. For more info, see section on compatibility with pandoc. -
lua-filter
lists pandoc lua filters. -
postprocessor
lists executable to pipe pandoc’s output through. Standard unix executables (sed
,tr
, etc.) are examples of possible use. Postprocessors are skipped if a binary writer (e.g.docx
) is used. -
postflight
lists executables run after the output has been written. If output is stdout, postflight scripts are run after stdout has been flushed. -
cleanup
lists executables run before panzer exits and after postflight scripts. Cleanup scripts run irrespective of whether an error has occurred earlier.
Example:
Notes:
all:
metadata:
numbersections: false
latex:
metadata:
numbersections: true
fontsize: 12pt
commandline:
wrap: preserve
filter:
- run: deemph.py
postflight:
- run: latexmk.py
If panzer were run on the following document with the latex writer selected,
---
title: "My document"
style: Notes
...
it would run pandoc with filter deemph.py
and command line option
--wrap=preserve
on the following and then execute latexmk.py
.
---
title: "My document"
numbersections: true
fontsize: 12pt
...
Styles may be defined:
- ‘Globally’ in
.yaml
files in.panzer/styles/
- ‘Locally’ in
.yaml
files in the current working directory./styles/
) - ‘In document’ inside a
styledef
field in the document’s yaml metadata block
If no .panzer/styles/
directory is found, panzer will look for global
style definitions in .panzer/styles.yaml
if it exists. If no
./styles/
directory is found in the current working directory, panzer
will look for local style definitions in ./styles.yaml
if it exists.
Overriding among style settings is determined by the following rules:
# | overriding rule |
---|---|
1 | Local style definitions override global style definitions |
2 | In document style definitions override local style definitions |
3 | Writer-specific settings override settings for all |
4 | In a list, later styles override earlier ones |
5 | Children override parents |
6 | Fields set outside a style definition override any style’s setting |
For fields that pertain to scripts/filters, overriding is additive; for other fields, it is non-additive:
-
For
metadata
,template
, andcommandline
, if one style overrides another (say, a parent and child setnumbersections
to different values), then inheritance is non-additive, and only one (the child) wins. -
For
preflight
,lua-filter
,filter
,postflight
andcleanup
if one style overrides another, then the ‘winner’ adds its items after those of the ‘loser’. For example, if the parent adds topostflight
an item-run: latexmk.py
, and the child adds- run: printlog.py
, thenprintlog.py
will be run afterlatexmk.py
-
To remove an item from an additive list, add it as the value of a
kill
field: for example,- kill: latexmk.py
Arguments passed to panzer directly on the command line trump any style
settings, and cannot be overridden by any metadata setting. Filters
specified on the command line (via --filter
and --lua-filter
) are
run first, and cannot be removed. All lua filters are run after json
filters. pandoc options set via panzer’s command line invocation
override any set via commandline
.
Multiple input files are joined according to pandoc’s rules. Metadata are merged using left-biased union. This means overriding behaviour when merging multiple input files is different from that of panzer, and always non-additive.
If fed input from stdin, panzer buffers this to a temporary file in the current working directory before proceeding. This is required to allow preflight scripts to access the data. The temporary file is removed when panzer exits.
Executables (scripts, filters, postprocessors) are specified by a list
(the ‘run list’). The list determines what gets run when. Processes are
executed from first to last in the run list. If an item appears as the
value of a run:
field, then it is added to the run list. If an item
appears as the value of a kill:
field, then any previous occurrence is
removed from the run list. Killing an item does not prevent it from
being added later. A run list can be completely emptied by adding the
special item - killall: true
.
Arguments can be passed to executables by listing them as the value of
the args
field of that item. The value of the args
field is passed
as the command line options to the external process. This value of
args
should be a quoted inline code span (e.g. "`--options`"
) to
prevent the parser interpreting it as markdown. Note that json filters
always receive the writer name as their first argument.
Lua filters cannot take arguments and the contents of their args
field
is ignored.
Example:
- filter:
- run: setbaseheader.py
args: "`--level=2`"
- postprocess:
- run: sed
args: "`-e 's/hello/goodbye/g'`"
- postflight:
- kill: open_pdf.py
- cleanup:
- killall: true
The filter setbaseheader.py
receives the writer name as its first
argument and --level=2
as its second argument.
When panzer is searching for a filter foo.py
, it will look for:
# | look for |
---|---|
1 | ./foo.py |
2 | ./filter/foo.py |
3 | ./filter/foo/foo.py |
4 | ~/.panzer/filter/foo.py |
5 | ~/.panzer/filter/foo/foo.py |
6 | foo.py in PATH defined by current environment |
Similar rules apply to other executables and to templates.
The typical structure for the support directory .panzer
is:
.panzer/
cleanup/
filter/
lua-filter/
postflight/
postprocess/
preflight/
template/
shared/
styles/
Within each directory, each executable may have a named subdirectory:
postflight/
latexmk/
latexmk.py
Arbitrary pandoc command line options can be set using metadata via
commandline
. commandline
can appear outside a style definition and
in a document’s metadata block, where it overrides the settings of any
style.
commandline
contains one field for each pandoc command line option.
The field name is the unabbreviated name of the relevant pandoc command
line option (e.g. standalone
).
- For pandoc flags, the value should be boolean (
true
,false
), e.g.standalone: true
. - For pandoc key-values, the value should be a quoted inline code
span, e.g.
include-in-header: "`path/to/my/header`"
. - For pandoc repeated key-values, the value should be a list of inline code spans, e.g.
commandline:
include-in-header:
- "`file1.txt`"
- "`file2.txt`"
- "`file3.txt`"
Repeated key-value options in comandline
are added after any provided
from the command line. Overriding styles append to repeated key-value
lists of the styles that they override.
false
plays a special role. false
means that the pandoc command line
option with the field’s name, if set, should be unset. false
can be
used for both flags and key-value options (e.g. include-in-header: false
).
Example:
commandline:
standalone: true
slide-level: "`3`"
number-sections: false
include-in-header: false
This passes the following options to pandoc --standalone --slide-level=3
and removes any --number-sections
and
--include-in-header=...
options.
These pandoc command line options cannot be set via commandline
:
bash-completion
dump-args
filter
from
help
ignore-args
list-extensions
list-highlight-languages
list-highlight-styles
list-input-formats
list-output-formats
lua-filter
metadata
output
print-default-data-file
print-default-template
print-highlight-style
read
template
to
variable
version
write
External processes have just as much information as panzer does. panzer
sends its information to external processes via a json message. This
message is sent as a string over stdin to scripts (preflight,
postflight, cleanup scripts). It is stored inside a CodeBlock
of the
AST for filters. Note that filters need to parse the panzer_reserved
field and deserialise the contents of its CodeBlock
to recover the
json message. Some relevant discussion is
here.
Postprocessors do not receive a json message (if you need it, you should
probably be using a filter).
JSON_MESSAGE = [{'metadata': METADATA,
'template': TEMPLATE,
'style': STYLE,
'stylefull': STYLEFULL,
'styledef': STYLEDEF,
'runlist': RUNLIST,
'options': OPTIONS}]
-
METADATA
is a copy of the metadata branch of the document’s AST (useful for scripts, not useful for filters) -
TEMPLATE
is a string with path to the current template -
STYLE
is a list of current style(s) -
STYLEFULL
is a list of current style(s) including all parents, grandparents, etc. in order of application -
STYLEDEF
is a copy of all style definitions employed in document -
RUNLIST
is a list of processes in the run list; it has the following structure:
RUNLIST = [{'kind': 'preflight'|'filter'|'lua-filter'|'postprocess'|'postflight'|'cleanup',
'command': 'my command',
'arguments': ['argument1', 'argument2', ...],
'status': 'queued'|'running'|'failed'|'done'
},
...
...
]
OPTIONS
is a dictionary containing panzer’s and pandoc’s command line options:
OPTIONS = {
'panzer': {
'panzer_support': const.DEFAULT_SUPPORT_DIR,
'pandoc': 'pandoc',
'debug': str(),
'quiet': False,
'strict': False,
'stdin_temp_file': str() # tempfile used to buffer stdin
},
'pandoc': {
'input': list(), # list of input files
'output': '-', # output file; '-' is stdout
'pdf_output': False, # if pandoc will write a .pdf
'read': str(), # reader
'write': str(), # writer
'options': {'r': dict(), 'w': dict()}
}
}
options
contains the command line options with which pandoc is called.
It consists of two separate dictionaries. The dictionary under the 'r'
key contains all pandoc options pertaining to reading the source
documents to the AST. The dictionary under the 'w'
key contains all
pandoc options pertaining to writing the AST to the output document.
Scripts read the json message above by deserialising json input on stdin.
Filters can read the json message by reading the metadata field,
panzer_reserved
, stored as a raw code block in the AST, and
deserialising the string JSON_MESSAGE_STR
to recover the json:
panzer_reserved:
json_message: |
``` {.json}
JSON_MESSAGE_STR
```
panzer captures stderr output from all executables. This is for pretty printing of info and errors. Scripts and filters should send json messages to panzer via stderr. If a message is sent to stderr that is not correctly formatted, panzer will print it verbatim prefixed by a ‘!’.
The json message that panzer expects is a newline-separated sequence of utf-8 encoded json dictionaries, each with the following structure:
{ 'level': LEVEL, 'message': MESSAGE }
-
LEVEL
is a string that sets the error level; it can take one of the following values:'CRITICAL' 'ERROR' 'WARNING' 'INFO' 'DEBUG' 'NOTSET'
-
MESSAGE
is a string with your message
panzer accepts pandoc filters. panzer allows filters to behave in two new ways:
- Json filters can take more than one command line argument (first argument still reserved for the writer).
- A
panzer_reserved
field is added to the AST metadata branch with goodies for filters to mine.
For pandoc, json filters and lua-filters are applied in the order
specified by respective occurances of --filter
and --lua-filter
on
the command line. This behaviour is not entirely supported in panzer.
Instead, all json filters are applied first and in the order specified
on the command line and the style definition (command line filters are
applied first and unkillable). Then the lua-filters are applied, also in
the order specified on the command line and by the style definition
(command line filters are applied first and unkillable). The reasons for
the divergence with pandoc’s behaviour are complex but mainly derive
from performance benefit.
The follow pandoc command line options cannot be used with panzer:
--bash-completion
--dump-args
--ignore-args
--list-extensions
--list-highlight-languages
--list-highlight-styles
--list-input-formats
--list-output-formats
--print-default-template
,-D
--print-default-data-file
--version
,-v
--help
,-h
The following metadata fields are reserved for use by panzer:
styledef
style
template
preflight
filter
lua-filter
postflight
postprocess
cleanup
commandline
panzer_reserved
read
The writer name all
is also occupied.
Pull requests welcome:
- Slower than I would like (calls to subprocess slow in Python)
- Calls to subprocesses (scripts, filters, etc.) block ui
- Possible issue under
Windows, so far reported
by only one user. A leading dot plus slash is required on filter
filenames. Rather than having
- run: foo.bar
, on Windows one needs to have- run: ./foo.bar
. More information on this is welcome. I am happy to fix compatibility problems under Windows.
-
Why do I get the error
[Errno 13] Permission denied
? Filters and scripts must be executable. Vanilla pandoc allows filters to be run without their executable permission set. panzer does not allow this. The solution: set the executable permission of your filter or script,chmod +x myfilter_name.py
For more, see here. -
Does panzer expand
~
or*
inside field of a style definition? panzer does not do any shell expansion/globbing inside a style definition. The reason is described here. TL;DR: expansion and globbing are messy and not something that panzer is in a position to do correctly or predictably inside a style definition. You need to use the full path to reference your home directory inside a style definition.
- https://github.com/mb21/panrun
- https://github.com/htdebeer/pandocomatic
- https://github.com/balachia/panopy
- https://github.com/phyllisstein/pandown
- 1.4.1 (22 February 2018):
- improved support of lua filters thanks to feedback from jzeneto
- 1.4 (20 February 2018):
- support added for lua filters
- 1.3.1 (18 December 2017):
- updated for pandoc 2.0.5
#35. Support for
all changes to command line interface and
pptx
writer.
- updated for pandoc 2.0.5
#35. Support for
all changes to command line interface and
- 1.3 (7 November 2017):
- updated for pandoc 2.0 #31. Please note that this version of panzer breaks compatibility with versions of pandoc earlier than 2.0. Please upgrade to a version of pandoc >2.0. Versions of pandoc prior to 2.0 will no longer be supported in future releases of panzer.
- 1.2 (12 January 2017):
- fixed issue introduced by breaking change in panzer 1.1 #27. Added panzer compatibility mode for pandoc versions <1.18. All version of pandoc >1.12.1 should work with panzer now.
- 1.1 (27 October 2016):
- breaking change: support pandoc 1.18’s new api; earlier versions of pandoc will not work
- 1.0 (21 July 2015):
- new:
---strict
panzer command line option: #10 - new:
commandline
allows repeated options using lists: #3 - new:
commandline
lists behave as additive in style inheritance: #6 - new: support multiple yaml style definition files: #4
- new: support local yaml style definition files: #4
- new: simplify format for panzer’s json message: ce2a12
- new: reproduce pandoc’s reader depending on writer settings: #1, #7
- fix: refactor
commandline
implementation: #1 - fix: improve documentation: #2
- fix: unicode error in
setup.py
: #12 - fix: support yaml style definition files without closing empty line: #13
- fix: add
.gitignore
files to repository: PR#1
- new:
- 1.0b2 (23 May 2015):
- new:
commandline
- set arbitrary pandoc command line options via metadata
- new:
- 1.0b1 (14 May 2015):
- initial release