title	\LARGE \bf Markdown to PDF using Pandoc and \LaTeX
author	Johan Nylander
institute	NRM
date	2025
theme	metropolis
classoption	aspectratio=169

Note

This README.md file will render slightly different on github.com compared to the output from using the scripts in this repository (md2pdf or md2beamer).

Normally, one would design the markdown text specifically for the final target media, but the examples given here are pretty portable. See further here.

Take-home note: You can mix markdown, html, and tex!

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Prerequisites

On a Debian-based system:

$ apt install pandoc texlive-xetex

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Usage

Plain PDF

$ ./md2pdf README.md

. . .

Beamer presentation

$ ./md2beamer README.md

---

To get slides in beamer

1. Start the slide with a single #
2. End the slide with ---

Note that in plain PDF, ---, is rendered as a horizontal line.

---

Change font size and use a footnote

\tiny tiny text

\scriptsize scriptsize text

\normalsize normalsize text, this is over strike, this is italics, this in bold

\Large Large text with a footnote¹

\LARGE LARGE text

\Huge Huge text

\normalsize

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Lists

1. Numbered item
2. Numbered item

• Bullet item

• Bullet item

• Checklist item

• Checklist item

---

Table with text alignment

Some	thing	else
A	B	C
D	E	F

---

Insert image

{width=70%}\

---

Another way of inserting and images, and a code block

The image above was inserted using the following syntax (here displayed as inline code): ![Figure caption](img/the_general_problem.png){width=70%}\

One alternative is to use this text in the markdown file (displayed as a code block):

\begin{figure}
  \begin{center}
    \includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{img/the_general_problem.png}
   \end{center}
\end{figure}

---

Adding images next to each other

{width=40%}\ {width=40%}

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Further reading

• pandoc
• xetex
• markdown syntax (pandoc)
• markdown syntax (github)
• markdownguide.org
• xkcd

Footnotes

1. Footnote text ↩