Markdown vs Pandoc

Overview

Markdown

Stacks22.2K

Followers16.5K

Votes960

Pandoc

Stacks279

Followers68

Votes3

GitHub Stars40.0K

Forks3.7K

Markdown vs Pandoc: What are the differences?

Introduction

Markdown is a lightweight markup language used for formatting and styling plain text. It is widely used in websites and online platforms for creating web pages or blog posts. On the other hand, Pandoc is a document converter that allows converting files from one markup format to another. Although Pandoc supports Markdown, it also supports various other file formats. Here are the key differences between Markdown and Pandoc.

Markdown Syntax: Markdown has a set of specific syntax rules for formatting text, while Pandoc provides an extended set of syntax options. Pandoc offers additional features like footnotes, metadata, tables, citations, and cross-references that are not available in standard Markdown.
File Conversion: Markdown is primarily used for creating and formatting text, whereas Pandoc is meant for converting files from one format to another. Pandoc can convert Markdown files to various other formats like HTML, PDF, DOCX, LaTeX, and more. It also supports converting between different markup formats like reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, and others.
Plugins and Extensions: Markdown has a limited set of features and does not provide extensive support for plugins or extensions. On the other hand, Pandoc offers a wide range of extensions and plugins that can be used to enhance the functionality and customize the conversion process. These plugins and extensions allow users to include additional features and formats during the conversion process.
Table of Contents: Markdown does not have an inbuilt feature for generating a table of contents, while Pandoc can automatically generate a table of contents based on the headings or sections present in the document. This feature is especially useful for creating longer documents or books.
Mathematical Equations: Pandoc supports mathematical equations using LaTeX syntax, which can be rendered into various output formats like PDF or HTML with properly formatted equations. Markdown, on the other hand, does not have native support for mathematical equations and requires additional tools or plugins for rendering equations.
Custom Configuration: Pandoc allows users to define custom configuration files that can be used to customize the conversion process according to specific requirements. Markdown does not have this level of customization and relies on the default configuration settings of the rendering platform.

In summary, Markdown is a lightweight markup language used for formatting text, while Pandoc is a versatile document converter that supports various markup formats and provides advanced features like table of contents, mathematical equations, plugins, and custom configurations. Pandoc extends and enhances the functionality of Markdown, making it suitable for complex document conversions and advanced formatting requirements.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs

CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Markdown, Pandoc

Rick

founder at Webcompose.ca

May 8, 2020

Needs adviceon

GitHub

Markdown

npm

I am a newbie to StackShare and the GitHub community. I want to understand how to use an include statement to get a collection of Markdown files to create a book. I have been told that there are a number of useful tools. My problem is that npm and Node.js are also very new to me. Any suggestions on how to get my md chapters into a printable document would be helpful.

80.3k views80.3k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Markdown	Pandoc
Markdown is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML.	It is a free and open-source document converter, widely used as a writing tool and as a basis for publishing workflows. It converts files from one markup format into another. It can convert documents in (several dialects of) Markdown, reStructuredText, textile, HTML, DocBook, LaTeX, MediaWiki markup, TWiki and many more.
-	Command-line tool; Supports OS X, Windows, Linux, Universal Document Converter
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 40.0K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 3.7K
Stacks 22.2K	Stacks 279
Followers 16.5K	Followers 68
Votes 960	Votes 3
Pros & Cons
Pros 345 Easy formatting 246 Widely adopted 194 Intuitive 132 Github integration 41 Great for note taking Cons 2 Cannot centralise (HTML code needed) 1 Non-extensible 1 Not suitable for longer documents 1 Limited syntax 1 Inconsistend flavours eg github, reddit, mmd etc	Pros 2 Markdown 1 More popular and active on github
Integrations
No integrations available	Windows Linux Mac OS X

What are some alternatives to Markdown, Pandoc?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Related Comparisons

Markdown vs Pandoc: What are the differences?

Introduction

Markdown Syntax: Markdown has a set of specific syntax rules for formatting text, while Pandoc provides an extended set of syntax options. Pandoc offers additional features like footnotes, metadata, tables, citations, and cross-references that are not available in standard Markdown.
File Conversion: Markdown is primarily used for creating and formatting text, whereas Pandoc is meant for converting files from one format to another. Pandoc can convert Markdown files to various other formats like HTML, PDF, DOCX, LaTeX, and more. It also supports converting between different markup formats like reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, and others.
Plugins and Extensions: Markdown has a limited set of features and does not provide extensive support for plugins or extensions. On the other hand, Pandoc offers a wide range of extensions and plugins that can be used to enhance the functionality and customize the conversion process. These plugins and extensions allow users to include additional features and formats during the conversion process.
Table of Contents: Markdown does not have an inbuilt feature for generating a table of contents, while Pandoc can automatically generate a table of contents based on the headings or sections present in the document. This feature is especially useful for creating longer documents or books.
Mathematical Equations: Pandoc supports mathematical equations using LaTeX syntax, which can be rendered into various output formats like PDF or HTML with properly formatted equations. Markdown, on the other hand, does not have native support for mathematical equations and requires additional tools or plugins for rendering equations.
Custom Configuration: Pandoc allows users to define custom configuration files that can be used to customize the conversion process according to specific requirements. Markdown does not have this level of customization and relies on the default configuration settings of the rendering platform.

Markdown vs Pandoc

Overview

Markdown vs Pandoc: What are the differences?