neulab/tldr huggingface dataset:
The label can be any string of alphanumeric characters, underscores, or hyphens.
Note: continuation paragraphs in example lists must always be indented four spaces, regardless of the length of the list marker.  That is, example lists always behave as if the four_space_rule extension is set. This is because example labels tend to be long, and indenting content to the first non-space character after the label would be awkward.
Ending a list What if you want to put an indented code block after a list?
-   item one -   item two
{ my code block }
Trouble! Here pandoc (like other Markdown implementations) will treat { my code block } as the second paragraph of item two, and not as a code block.
To “cut off” the list after item two, you can insert some non-indented content, like an HTML comment, which won’t produce visible output in any format:
<!-- end of list -->
You can use the same trick if you want two consecutive lists instead of one big list:
<!-- -->
1.  uno 2.  dos 3.  tres
Horizontal rules A line containing a row of three or more *, -, or _ characters (optionally separated by spaces) produces a horizontal rule:
*  *  *  *
Tables Four kinds of tables may be used.  The first three kinds presuppose the use of a fixed-width font, such as Courier.  The fourth kind can be used with proportionally spaced fonts, as it does not require lining up columns.
Extension: table_captions A caption may optionally be provided with all 4 kinds of tables (as illustrated in the examples below).  A caption is a paragraph beginning with the string Table: (or just :), which will be stripped off.  It may appear either before or after the table.
Extension: simple_tables Simple tables look like this:
Right     Left     Center     Default -------     ------ ----------   ------- 12     12        12            12 123     123       123          123 1     1          1             1
Table:  Demonstration of simple table syntax.
The header and table rows must each fit on one line.  Column alignments are determined by the position of the header text relative to the dashed line below it:
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the right side but extends beyond it on the left, the column is right-aligned.
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on the left side but extends beyond it on the right, the column is left-aligned.
• If the dashed line extends beyond the header text on both sides, the column is centered.
• If the dashed line is flush with the header text on both sides, the default alignment is used (in most cases, this will be left).
The table must end with a blank line, or a line of dashes followed by a blank line.
The column header row may be omitted, provided a dashed line is used to end the table.  For example:
-------     ------ ----------   ------- 12     12        12             12 123     123       123           123 1     1          1              1 -------     ------ ----------   -------
When the header row is omitted, column alignments are determined on the basis of the first line of the table body.  So, in the tables above, the columns would be right, left, center, and right aligned, respectively.
Extension: multiline_tables Multiline tables allow header and table rows to span multiple lines of text (but cells that span multiple columns or rows of the table are not supported).  Here is an example:
------------------------------------------------------------- Centered   Default           Right Left Header    Aligned         Aligned Aligned ----------- ------- --------------- ------------------------- First    row                12.0 Example of a row that spans multiple lines.
Second    row                 5.0 Here's another one. Note the blank line between rows. -------------------------------------------------------------
Table: Here's the caption. It, too, may span multiple lines.
These work like simple tables, but with the following differences:
• They must begin with a row of dashes, before the header text (unless the header row is omitted).
• They must end with a row of dashes, then a blank line.
• The rows must be separated by blank lines.
In multiline tables, the table parser pays attention to the widths of the columns, and the writers try to reproduce these relative widths in the output.  So, if you find that one of the columns is too narrow in the output, try widening it in the Markdown source.
The header may be omitted in multiline tables as well as simple tables:
----------- ------- --------------- ------------------------- First    row                12.0 Example of a row that spans multiple lines.
Second    row                 5.0 Here's another one. Note the blank line between rows. ----------- ------- --------------- -------------------------
: Here's a multiline table without a header.
It is possible for a multiline table to have just one row, but the row should be followed by a blank line (and then the row of dashes that ends the table), or the table may be interpreted as a simple table.
Extension: grid_tables Grid tables look like this:
: Sample grid table.
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+ | Fruit         | Price         | Advantages         | +===============+===============+====================+ | Bananas       | $1.34         | - built-in wrapper | |               |               | - bright color     | +---------------+---------------+--------------------+ | Oranges       | $2.10         | - cures scurvy     | |               |               | - tasty            | +---------------+---------------+--------------------+
The row of =s separates the header from the table body, and can be omitted for a headerless table.  The cells of grid tables may contain arbitrary block elements (multiple paragraphs, code blocks, lists, etc.). Cells that span multiple columns or rows are not supported.  Grid tables can be created easily using Emacs’ table-mode (M-x table-insert).
Alignments can be specified as with pipe tables, by putting colons at the boundaries of the separator line after the header:
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+ | Right         | Left          | Centered           | +==============:+:==============+:==================:+ | Bananas       | $1.34         | built-in wrapper   | +---------------+---------------+--------------------+
For headerless tables, the colons go on the top line instead:
+--------------:+:--------------+:------------------:+ | Right         | Left          | Centered           | +---------------+---------------+--------------------+
Grid Table Limitations Pandoc does not support grid tables with row spans or column spans.  This means that neither variable numbers of columns across rows nor variable numbers of rows across columns are supported by Pandoc.  All grid tables must have the same number of columns in each row, and the same number of rows in each column.  For example, the Docutils sample grid tables will not render as expected with Pandoc.
Extension: pipe_tables Pipe tables look like this:
| Right | Left | Default | Center | |------:|:-----|---------|:------:| |   12  |  12  |    12   |    12  | |  123  |  123 |   123   |   123  | |    1  |    1 |     1   |     1  |
: Demonstration of pipe table syntax.
The syntax is identical to PHP Markdown Extra tables.  The beginning and ending pipe characters are optional, but pipes are required between all columns.  The colons indicate column alignment as shown.  The header cannot be omitted.  To simulate a headerless table, include a header with blank cells.
Since the pipes indicate column boundaries, columns need not be vertically aligned, as they are in the above example.  So, this is a perfectly legal (though ugly) pipe table:
fruit| price -----|-----: apple|2.05 pear|1.37 orange|3.09
The cells of pipe tables cannot contain block elements like paragraphs and lists, and cannot span multiple lines.  If a pipe table contains a row whose Markdown content is wider than the column width (see --columns), then the table will take up the full text width and the cell contents will wrap, with the relative cell widths determined by the number of dashes in the line separating the table header from the table body.  (For example ---|- would make the first column 3/4 and the second column 1/4 of the full text width.) On the other hand, if no lines are wider than column width, then cell contents will not be wrapped, and the cells will be sized to their contents.
Note: pandoc also recognizes pipe tables of the following form, as can be produced by Emacs’ orgtbl-mode:
| One | Two   | |-----+-------| | my  | table | | is  | nice  |
The difference is that + is used instead of |.  Other orgtbl features are not supported.  In particular, to get non-default column alignment, you’ll need to add colons as above.
Metadata blocks Extension: pandoc_title_block If the file begins with a title block
% title % author(s) (separated by semicolons) % date
it will be parsed as bibliographic information, not regular text.  (It will be used, for example, in the title of standalone LaTeX or HTML output.) The block may contain just a title, a title and an author, or all three elements.  If you want to include an author but no title, or a title and a date but no author, you need a blank line:
% % Author
% My title % % June 15, 2006
The title may occupy multiple lines, but continuation lines must begin with leading space, thus:
% My title on multiple lines
If a document has multiple authors, the authors may be put on separate lines with leading space, or separated by semicolons, or both.  So, all of the following are equivalent:
% Author One Author Two
% Author One; Author Two
The date must fit on one line.
All three metadata fields may contain standard inline formatting (italics, links, footnotes, etc.).
Title blocks will always be parsed, but they will affect the output only when the --standalone (-s) option is chosen.  In HTML output, titles will appear twice: once in the document head – this is the title that will appear at the top of the window in a browser – and once at the beginning of the document body.  The title in the document head can have an optional prefix attached (--title-prefix or -T option).  The title in the body appears as an H1 element with class “title”, so it can be suppressed or reformatted with CSS.  If a title prefix is specified with -T and no title block appears in the document, the title prefix will be used by itself as the HTML title.
The man page writer extracts a title, man page section number, and other header and footer information from the title line.  The title is assumed to be the first word on the title line, which may optionally end with a (single-digit) section number in parentheses.  (There should be no space between the title and the parentheses.)  Anything after this is assumed to be additional footer and header text.  A single pipe character (|) should be used to separate the footer text from the header text.  Thus,
% PANDOC(1)
will yield a man page with the title PANDOC and section 1.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals
will also have “Pandoc User Manuals” in the footer.
% PANDOC(1) Pandoc User Manuals | Version 4.0
will also have “Version 4.0” in the header.
Extension: yaml_metadata_block A YAML metadata block is a valid YAML object, delimited by a line of three hyphens (---) at the top and a line of three hyphens (---) or three dots (...) at the bottom.  A YAML metadata block may occur anywhere in the document, but if it is not at the beginning, it must be preceded by a blank line.  (Note that, because of the way pandoc concatenates input files when several are provided, you may also keep the metadata in a separate YAML file and pass it to pandoc as an argument, along with your Markdown files:
pandoc chap1.md chap2.md chap3.md metadata.yaml -s -o book.html
Just be sure that the YAML file begins with --- and ends with --- or ....) Alternatively, you can use the --metadata-file option.  Using that approach however, you cannot reference content (like footnotes) from the main markdown input document.
Metadata will be taken from the fields of the YAML object and added to any existing document metadata.  Metadata can contain lists and objects (nested arbitrarily), but all string scalars will be interpreted as Markdown.  Fields with names ending in an underscore will be ignored by pandoc.  (They may be given a role by external processors.) Field names must not be interpretable as YAML numbers or boolean values (so, for example, yes, True, and 15 cannot be used as field names).
A document may contain multiple metadata blocks.  If two metadata blocks attempt to set the same field, the value from the second block will be taken.
When pandoc is used with -t markdown to create a Markdown document, a YAML metadata block will be produced only if the -s/--standalone option is used.  All of the metadata will appear in a single block at the beginning of the document.
Note that YAML escaping rules must be followed.  Thus, for example, if a title contains a colon, it must be quoted, and if it contains a backslash escape, then it must be ensured that it is not treated as a YAML escape sequence.  The pipe character (|) can be used to begin an indented block that will be interpreted literally, without need for escaping.  This form is necessary when the field contains blank lines or block-level formatting:
--- title:  'This is the title: it contains a colon' author: - Author One - Author Two keywords: [nothing, nothingness] abstract: | This is the abstract.
It consists of two paragraphs. ...
The literal block after the | must be indented relative to the line containing the |.  If it is not, the YAML will be invalid and pandoc will not interpret it as metadata.  For an overview of the complex rules governing YAML, see the Wikipedia entry on YAML syntax.
Template variables will be set automatically from the metadata.  Thus, for example, in writing HTML, the variable abstract will be set to the HTML equivalent of the Markdown in the abstract field:
<p>This is the abstract.</p> <p>It consists of two paragraphs.</p>
Variables can contain arbitrary YAML structures, but the template must match this structure.  The author variable in the default templates expects a simple list or string, but can be changed to support more complicated structures.  The following combination, for example, would add an affiliation to the author if one is given:
--- title: The document title author: - name: Author One affiliation: University of Somewhere - name: Author Two affiliation: University of Nowhere ...
To use the structured authors in the example above, you would need a custom template:
$for(author)$ $if(author.name)$ $author.name$$if(author.affiliation)$ ($author.affiliation$)$endif$ $else$ $author$ $endif$ $endfor$
Raw content to include in the document’s header may be specified using header-includes; however, it is important to mark up this content as raw code for a particular output format, using the raw_attribute extension), or it will be interpreted as markdown.  For example:
header-includes: - | ```{=latex} \let\oldsection\section \renewcommand{\section}[1]{\clearpage\oldsection{#1}} ```
Note: the yaml_metadata_block extension works with commonmark as well as markdown (and it is enabled by default in gfm and commonmark_x). However, in these formats the following restrictions apply:
• The YAML metadata block must occur at the beginning of the document (and there can be only one).  If multiple files are given as arguments to pandoc, only the first can be a YAML metadata block.
• The leaf nodes of the YAML structure are parsed in isolation from each other and from the rest of the document.  So, for example, you can’t use a reference link in these contexts if the link definition is somewhere else in the document.
Backslash escapes Extension: all_symbols_escapable Except inside a code block or inline code, any punctuation or space character preceded by a backslash will be treated literally, even if it would normally indicate formatting.  Thus, for example, if one writes
*\*hello\**
one will get
<em>*hello*</em>
<strong>hello</strong>
This rule is easier to remember than standard Markdown’s rule, which allows only the following characters to be backslash-escaped:
\`*_{}[]()>#+-.!
(However, if the markdown_strict format is used, the standard Markdown rule will be used.)
A backslash-escaped space is parsed as a nonbreaking space.  In TeX output, it will appear as ~.  In HTML and XML output, it will appear as a literal unicode nonbreaking space character (note that it will thus actually look “invisible” in the generated HTML source; you can still use the --ascii command-line option to make it appear as an explicit entity).
A backslash-escaped newline (i.e. a backslash occurring at the end of a line) is parsed as a hard line break.  It will appear in TeX output as \\ and in HTML as <br />.  This is a nice alternative to Markdown’s “invisible” way of indicating hard line breaks using two trailing spaces on a line.
Backslash escapes do not work in verbatim contexts.
Inline formatting Emphasis To emphasize some text, surround it with *s or _, like this:
This text is _emphasized with underscores_, and this is *emphasized with asterisks*.
Double * or _ produces strong emphasis:
This is **strong emphasis** and __with underscores__.
A * or _ character surrounded by spaces, or backslash-escaped, will not trigger emphasis:
This is * not emphasized *, and \*neither is this\*.
Extension: intraword_underscores Because _ is sometimes used inside words and identifiers, pandoc does not interpret a _ surrounded by alphanumeric characters as an emphasis marker.  If you want to emphasize just part of a word, use *:
feas*ible*, not feas*able*.
Strikeout Extension: strikeout To strikeout a section of text with a horizontal line, begin and end it with ~~.  Thus, for example,
This ~~is deleted text.~~
Superscripts and subscripts Extension: superscript, subscript Superscripts may be written by surrounding the superscripted text by ^ characters; subscripts may be written by surrounding the subscripted text by ~ characters.  Thus, for example,
H~2~O is a liquid.  2^10^ is 1024.
The text between ^...^ or ~...~ may not contain spaces or newlines.  If the superscripted or subscripted text contains spaces, these spaces must be escaped with backslashes.  (This is to prevent accidental superscripting and subscripting through the ordinary use of ~ and ^, and also bad interactions with footnotes.) Thus, if you want the letter P with `a cat' in subscripts, use P~a\ cat~, not P~a cat~.
Verbatim To make a short span of text verbatim, put it inside backticks:
What is the difference between `>>=` and `>>`?
If the verbatim text includes a backtick, use double backticks:
Here is a literal backtick `` ` ``.
(The spaces after the opening backticks and before the closing backticks will be ignored.)
The general rule is that a verbatim span starts with a string of consecutive backticks (optionally followed by a space) and ends with a string of the same number of backticks (optionally preceded by a space).
Note that backslash-escapes (and other Markdown constructs) do not work in verbatim contexts:
This is a backslash followed by an asterisk: `\*`.
Extension: inline_code_attributes Attributes can be attached to verbatim text, just as with fenced code blocks:
`<$>`{.haskell}
Small caps To write small caps, use the smallcaps class:
[Small caps]{.smallcaps}
Or, without the bracketed_spans extension:
<span class="smallcaps">Small caps</span>
For compatibility with other Markdown flavors, CSS is also supported:
<span style="font-variant:small-caps;">Small caps</span>
This will work in all output formats that support small caps.
Math Extension: tex_math_dollars Anything between two $ characters will be treated as TeX math.  The opening $ must have a non-space character immediately to its right, while the closing $ must have a non-space character immediately to its left, and must not be followed immediately by a digit.  Thus, $20,000 and $30,000 won’t parse as math.  If for some reason you need to enclose text in literal $ characters, backslash-escape them and they won’t be treated as math delimiters.
For display math, use $$ delimiters.  (In this case, the delimiters may be separated from the formula by whitespace.  However, there can be no blank lines betwen the opening and closing $$ delimiters.)
TeX math will be printed in all output formats.  How it is rendered depends on the output format:
LaTeX  It will appear verbatim surrounded by \(...\) (for inline math) or \[...\] (for display math).
Markdown, Emacs Org mode, ConTeXt, ZimWiki It will appear verbatim surrounded by $...$ (for inline math) or $$...$$ (for display math).
XWiki  It will appear verbatim surrounded by {{formula}}..{{/formula}}.
reStructuredText It will be rendered using an interpreted text role :math:.
AsciiDoc For AsciiDoc output format (-t asciidoc) it will appear verbatim surrounded by latexmath:[$...$] (for inline math) or [latexmath]++++\[...\]+++ (for display math).  For AsciiDoctor output format (-t asciidoctor) the LaTex delimiters ($..$ and \[..\]) are omitted.
Texinfo It will be rendered inside a @math command.
roff man, Jira markup It will be rendered verbatim without $’s.
MediaWiki, DokuWiki It will be rendered inside <math> tags.
Textile It will be rendered inside <span class="math"> tags.
RTF, OpenDocument It will be rendered, if possible, using Unicode characters, and will otherwise appear verbatim.
ODT    It will be rendered, if possible, using MathML.
DocBook If the --mathml flag is used, it will be rendered using MathML in an inlineequation or informalequation tag.  Otherwise it will be rendered, if possible, using Unicode characters.
Docx   It will be rendered using OMML math markup.
FictionBook2 If the --webtex option is used, formulas are rendered as images using CodeCogs or other compatible web service, downloaded and embedded in the e-book.  Otherwise, they will appear verbatim.
HTML, Slidy, DZSlides, S5, EPUB The way math is rendered in HTML will depend on the command-line options selected.  Therefore see Math rendering in HTML above.
Raw HTML Extension: raw_html Markdown allows you to insert raw HTML (or DocBook) anywhere in a document (except verbatim contexts, where <, >, and & are interpreted literally).  (Technically this is not an extension, since standard Markdown allows it, but it has been made an extension so that it can be disabled if desired.)
The raw HTML is passed through unchanged in HTML, S5, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, EPUB, Markdown, CommonMark, Emacs Org mode, and Textile output, and suppressed in other formats.
For a more explicit way of including raw HTML in a Markdown document, see the raw_attribute extension.
In the CommonMark format, if raw_html is enabled, superscripts, subscripts, strikeouts and small capitals will be represented as HTML. Otherwise, plain-text fallbacks will be used.  Note that even if raw_html is disabled, tables will be rendered with HTML syntax if they cannot use pipe syntax.
Extension: markdown_in_html_blocks Standard Markdown allows you to include HTML “blocks”: blocks of HTML between balanced tags that are separated from the surrounding text with blank lines, and start and end at the left margin.  Within these blocks, everything is interpreted as HTML, not Markdown; so (for example), * does not signify emphasis.
Pandoc behaves this way when the markdown_strict format is used; but by default, pandoc interprets material between HTML block tags as Markdown. Thus, for example, pandoc will turn
<table> <tr> <td>*one*</td> <td>[a link](https://google.com)</td> </tr> </table>
<table> <tr> <td><em>one</em></td> <td><a href="https://google.com">a link</a></td> </tr> </table>
whereas Markdown.pl will preserve it as is.
There is one exception to this rule: text between <script>, <style>, and <textarea> tags is not interpreted as Markdown.
This departure from standard Markdown should make it easier to mix Markdown with HTML block elements.  For example, one can surround a block of Markdown text with <div> tags without preventing it from being interpreted as Markdown.
Extension: native_divs Use native pandoc Div blocks for content inside <div> tags.  For the most part this should give the same output as markdown_in_html_blocks, but it makes it easier to write pandoc filters to manipulate groups of blocks.
Extension: native_spans Use native pandoc Span blocks for content inside <span> tags.  For the most part this should give the same output as raw_html, but it makes it easier to write pandoc filters to manipulate groups of inlines.
Extension: raw_tex In addition to raw HTML, pandoc allows raw LaTeX, TeX, and ConTeXt to be included in a document.  Inline TeX commands will be preserved and passed unchanged to the LaTeX and ConTeXt writers.  Thus, for example, you can use LaTeX to include BibTeX citations:
This result was proved in \cite{jones.1967}.
Note that in LaTeX environments, like
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}\hline Age & Frequency \\ \hline 18--25  & 15 \\ 26--35  & 33 \\ 36--45  & 22 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
the material between the begin and end tags will be interpreted as raw LaTeX, not as Markdown.
For a more explicit and flexible way of including raw TeX in a Markdown document, see the raw_attribute extension.
Inline LaTeX is ignored in output formats other than Markdown, LaTeX, Emacs Org mode, and ConTeXt.
Generic raw attribute Extension: raw_attribute Inline spans and fenced code blocks with a special kind of attribute will be parsed as raw content with the designated format.  For example, the following produces a raw roff ms block:
```{=ms} .MYMACRO blah blah ```
And the following produces a raw html inline element:
This is `<a>html</a>`{=html}
This can be useful to insert raw xml into docx documents, e.g.  a pagebreak:
```{=openxml} <w:p> <w:r> <w:br w:type="page"/> </w:r> </w:p> ```
The format name should match the target format name (see -t/--to, above, for a list, or use pandoc --list-output-formats).  Use openxml for docx output, opendocument for odt output, html5 for epub3 output, html4 for epub2 output, and latex, beamer, ms, or html5 for pdf output (depending on what you use for --pdf-engine).
This extension presupposes that the relevant kind of inline code or fenced code block is enabled.  Thus, for example, to use a raw attribute with a backtick code block, backtick_code_blocks must be enabled.
The raw attribute cannot be combined with regular attributes.
LaTeX macros Extension: latex_macros When this extension is enabled, pandoc will parse LaTeX macro definitions and apply the resulting macros to all LaTeX math and raw LaTeX.  So, for example, the following will work in all output formats, not just LaTeX:
\newcommand{\tuple}[1]{\langle #1 \rangle}
$\tuple{a, b, c}$
Note that LaTeX macros will not be applied if they occur inside a raw span or block marked with the raw_attribute extension.
When latex_macros is disabled, the raw LaTeX and math will not have macros applied.  This is usually a better approach when you are targeting LaTeX or PDF.
Macro definitions in LaTeX will be passed through as raw LaTeX only if latex_macros is not enabled.  Macro definitions in Markdown source (or other formats allowing raw_tex) will be passed through regardless of whether latex_macros is enabled.
Links Markdown allows links to be specified in several ways.
Automatic links If you enclose a URL or email address in pointy brackets, it will become a link:
<https://google.com> <sam@green.eggs.ham>
Inline links An inline link consists of the link text in square brackets, followed by the URL in parentheses.  (Optionally, the URL can be followed by a link title, in quotes.)
This is an [inline link](/url), and here's [one with a title](https://fsf.org "click here for a good time!").
There can be no space between the bracketed part and the parenthesized part.  The link text can contain formatting (such as emphasis), but the title cannot.
Email addresses in inline links are not autodetected, so they have to be prefixed with mailto:
[Write me!](mailto:sam@green.eggs.ham)
Reference links An explicit reference link has two parts, the link itself and the link definition, which may occur elsewhere in the document (either before or after the link).
The link consists of link text in square brackets, followed by a label in square brackets.  (There cannot be space between the two unless the spaced_reference_links extension is enabled.) The link definition consists of the bracketed label, followed by a colon and a space, followed by the URL, and optionally (after a space) a link title either in quotes or in parentheses.  The label must not be parseable as a citation (assuming the citations extension is enabled): citations take precedence over link labels.
[my label 1]: /foo/bar.html  "My title, optional" [my label 2]: /foo [my label 3]: https://fsf.org (The free software foundation) [my label 4]: /bar#special  'A title in single quotes'
The URL may optionally be surrounded by angle brackets:
[my label 5]: <http://foo.bar.baz>
The title may go on the next line:
[my label 3]: https://fsf.org "The free software foundation"
Note that link labels are not case sensitive.  So, this will work:
Here is [my link][FOO]
[Foo]: /bar/baz
In an implicit reference link, the second pair of brackets is empty:
See [my website][].
[my website]: http://foo.bar.baz
Note: In Markdown.pl and most other Markdown implementations, reference link definitions cannot occur in nested constructions such as list items or block quotes.  Pandoc lifts this arbitrary seeming restriction.  So the following is fine in pandoc, though not in most other implementations:
> My block [quote]. > > [quote]: /foo
Extension: shortcut_reference_links In a shortcut reference link, the second pair of brackets may be omitted entirely:
See [my website].
Internal links To link to another section of the same document, use the automatically generated identifier (see Heading identifiers).  For example:
See the [Introduction](#introduction).
See the [Introduction].
[Introduction]: #introduction
Internal links are currently supported for HTML formats (including HTML slide shows and EPUB), LaTeX, and ConTeXt.
Images A link immediately preceded by a ! will be treated as an image.  The link text will be used as the image’s alt text:
![la lune](lalune.jpg "Voyage to the moon")
![movie reel]
[movie reel]: movie.gif
Extension: implicit_figures An image with nonempty alt text, occurring by itself in a paragraph, will be rendered as a figure with a caption.  The image’s alt text will be used as the caption.
![This is the caption](/url/of/image.png)
How this is rendered depends on the output format.  Some output formats (e.g. RTF) do not yet support figures.  In those formats, you’ll just get an image in a paragraph by itself, with no caption.
If you just want a regular inline image, just make sure it is not the only thing in the paragraph.  One way to do this is to insert a nonbreaking space after the image:
![This image won't be a figure](/url/of/image.png)\
Note that in reveal.js slide shows, an image in a paragraph by itself that has the stretch class will fill the screen, and the caption and figure tags will be omitted.
Extension: link_attributes Attributes can be set on links and images:
An inline ![image](foo.jpg){#id .class width=30 height=20px} and a reference ![image][ref] with attributes.
[ref]: foo.jpg "optional title" {#id .class key=val key2="val 2"}
(This syntax is compatible with PHP Markdown Extra when only #id and .class are used.)
For HTML and EPUB, all known HTML5 attributes except width and height (but including srcset and sizes) are passed through as is.  Unknown attributes are passed through as custom attributes, with data- prepended. The other writers ignore attributes that are not specifically supported by their output format.
The width and height attributes on images are treated specially.  When used without a unit, the unit is assumed to be pixels.  However, any of the following unit identifiers can be used: px, cm, mm, in, inch and %. There must not be any spaces between the number and the unit.  For example:
![](file.jpg){ width=50% }
• Dimensions may be converted to a form that is compatible with the output format (for example, dimensions given in pixels will be converted to inches when converting HTML to LaTeX).  Conversion between pixels and physical measurements is affected by the --dpi option (by default, 96 dpi is assumed, unless the image itself contains dpi information).
• The % unit is generally relative to some available space.  For example the above example will render to the following.
• HTML: <img href="file.jpg" style="width: 50%;" />
• LaTeX: \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth,height=\textheight]{file.jpg} (If you’re using a custom template, you need to configure graphicx as in the default template.)
• ConTeXt: \externalfigure[file.jpg][width=0.5\textwidth]
• Some output formats have a notion of a class (ConTeXt) or a unique identifier (LaTeX \caption), or both (HTML).
• When no width or height attributes are specified, the fallback is to look at the image resolution and the dpi metadata embedded in the image file.
Divs and Spans Using the native_divs and native_spans extensions (see above), HTML syntax can be used as part of markdown to create native Div and Span elements in the pandoc AST (as opposed to raw HTML).  However, there is also nicer syntax available:
Extension: fenced_divs Allow special fenced syntax for native Div blocks.  A Div starts with a fence containing at least three consecutive colons plus some attributes. The attributes may optionally be followed by another string of consecutive colons.  The attribute syntax is exactly as in fenced code blocks (see Extension: fenced_code_attributes).  As with fenced code blocks, one can use either attributes in curly braces or a single unbraced word, which will be treated as a class name.  The Div ends with another line containing a string of at least three consecutive colons. The fenced Div should be separated by blank lines from preceding and following blocks.
::::: {#special .sidebar} Here is a paragraph.
And another. :::::
Fenced divs can be nested.  Opening fences are distinguished because they must have attributes:
::: Warning :::::: This is a warning.
::: Danger This is a warning within a warning. ::: ::::::::::::::::::
Fences without attributes are always closing fences.  Unlike with fenced code blocks, the number of colons in the closing fence need not match the number in the opening fence.  However, it can be helpful for visual clarity to use fences of different lengths to distinguish nested divs from their parents.
Extension: bracketed_spans A bracketed sequence of inlines, as one would use to begin a link, will be treated as a Span with attributes if it is followed immediately by attributes:
[This is *some text*]{.class key="val"}
Footnotes Extension: footnotes Pandoc’s Markdown allows footnotes, using the following syntax:
Here is a footnote reference,[^1] and another.[^longnote]
[^1]: Here is the footnote.
[^longnote]: Here's one with multiple blocks.
Subsequent paragraphs are indented to show that they belong to the previous footnote.
{ some.code }
The whole paragraph can be indented, or just the first line.  In this way, multi-paragraph footnotes work like multi-paragraph list items.
This paragraph won't be part of the note, because it isn't indented.
The identifiers in footnote references may not contain spaces, tabs, or newlines.  These identifiers are used only to correlate the footnote reference with the note itself; in the output, footnotes will be numbered sequentially.
The footnotes themselves need not be placed at the end of the document. They may appear anywhere except inside other block elements (lists, block quotes, tables, etc.).  Each footnote should be separated from surrounding content (including other footnotes) by blank lines.
Extension: inline_notes Inline footnotes are also allowed (though, unlike regular notes, they cannot contain multiple paragraphs).  The syntax is as follows:
Here is an inline note.^[Inlines notes are easier to write, since you don't have to pick an identifier and move down to type the note.]
Inline and regular footnotes may be mixed freely.
Citation syntax Extension: citations To cite a bibliographic item with an identifier foo, use the syntax @foo. Normal citations should be included in square brackets, with semicolons separating distinct items:
Blah blah [@doe99; @smith2000; @smith2004].
How this is rendered depends on the citation style.  In an author-date style, it might render as
Blah blah (Doe 1999, Smith 2000, 2004).
In a footnote style, it might render as
Blah blah.[^1]
[^1]:  John Doe, "Frogs," *Journal of Amphibians* 44 (1999); Susan Smith, "Flies," *Journal of Insects* (2000); Susan Smith, "Bees," *Journal of Insects* (2004).
See the CSL user documentation for more information about CSL styles and how they affect rendering.
Unless a citation key start with a letter, digit, or _, and contains only alphanumerics and internal punctuation characters (:.#$%&-+?<>~/), it must be surrounded by curly braces, which are not considered part of the key.  In @Foo_bar.baz., the key is Foo_bar.baz.  The final period is not internal punctuation, so it is not included in the key.  In @{Foo_bar.baz.}, the key is Foo_bar.baz., including the final period. The curly braces are recommended if you use URLs as keys: [@{https://example.com/bib?name=foobar&date=2000}, p.  33].
Citation items may optionally include a prefix, a locator, and a suffix. In
Blah blah [see @doe99, pp. 33-35 and *passim*; @smith04, chap. 1].
The first item (doe99) has prefix see, locator pp.  33-35, and suffix and *passim*.  The second item (smith04) has locator chap. 1 and no prefix or suffix.
Pandoc uses some heuristics to separate the locator from the rest of the subject.  It is sensitive to the locator terms defined in the CSL locale files.  Either abbreviated or unabbreviated forms are accepted.  In the en-US locale, locator terms can be written in either singular or plural forms, as book, bk./bks.; chapter, chap./chaps.; column, col./cols.; figure, fig./figs.; folio, fol./fols.; number, no./nos.; line, l./ll.; note, n./nn.; opus, op./opp.; page, p./pp.; paragraph, para./paras.; part, pt./pts.; section, sec./secs.; sub verbo, s.v./s.vv.; verse, v./vv.; volume, vol./vols.; ¶/¶¶; §/§§.  If no locator term is used, “page” is assumed.
In complex cases, you can force something to be treated as a locator by enclosing it in curly braces or prevent parsing the suffix as locator by prepending curly braces:
[@smith{ii, A, D-Z}, with a suffix] [@smith, {pp. iv, vi-xi, (xv)-(xvii)} with suffix here] [@smith{}, 99 years later]
A minus sign (-) before the @ will suppress mention of the author in the citation.  This can be useful when the author is already mentioned in the text:
Smith says blah [-@smith04].
You can also write an author-in-text citation, by omitting the square brackets:
@smith04 says blah.
@smith04 [p. 33] says blah.
This will cause the author’s name to be rendered, followed by the bibliographical details.  Use this form when you want to make the citation the subject of a sentence.
When you are using a note style, it is usually better to let citeproc create the footnotes from citations rather than writing an explicit note. If you do write an explicit note that contains a citation, note that normal citations will be put in parentheses, while author-in-text citations will not.  For this reason, it is sometimes preferable to use the author-in-text style inside notes when using a note style.
Non-default extensions The following Markdown syntax extensions are not enabled by default in pandoc, but may be enabled by adding +EXTENSION to the format name, where EXTENSION is the name of the extension.  Thus, for example, markdown+hard_line_breaks is Markdown with hard line breaks.
Extension: rebase_relative_paths Rewrite relative paths for Markdown links and images, depending on the path of the file containing the link or image link.  For each link or image, pandoc will compute the directory of the containing file, relative to the working directory, and prepend the resulting path to the link or image path.
The use of this extension is best understood by example.  Suppose you have a a subdirectory for each chapter of a book, chap1, chap2, chap3. Each contains a file text.md and a number of images used in the chapter. You would like to have ![image](spider.jpg) in chap1/text.md refer to chap1/spider.jpg and ![image](spider.jpg) in chap2/text.md refer to chap2/spider.jpg.  To do this, use
pandoc chap*/*.md -f markdown+rebase_relative_paths
Without this extension, you would have to use ![image](chap1/spider.jpg) in chap1/text.md and ![image](chap2/spider.jpg) in chap2/text.md.  Links with relative paths will be rewritten in the same way as images.
Absolute paths and URLs are not changed.  Neither are empty paths or paths consisting entirely of a fragment, e.g., #foo.
Note that relative paths in reference links and images will be rewritten relative to the file containing the link reference definition, not the file containing the reference link or image itself, if these differ.
Extension: attributes Allows attributes to be attached to any inline or block-level element. The syntax for the attributes is the same as that used in header_attributes.
• Attributes that occur immediately after an inline element affect that element.  If they follow a space, then they belong to the space. (Hence, this option subsumes inline_code_attributes and link_attributes.)
• Attributes that occur immediately before a block element, on a line by themselves, affect that element.
• Consecutive attribute specifiers may be used, either for blocks or for inlines.  Their attributes will be combined.
• Attributes that occur at the end of the text of a Setext or ATX heading (separated by whitespace from the text) affect the heading element. (Hence, this option subsumes header_attributes.)
• Attributes that occur after the opening fence in a fenced code block affect the code block element.  (Hence, this option subsumes fenced_code_attributes.)
• Attributes that occur at the end of a reference link definition affect links that refer to that definition.
Note that pandoc’s AST does not currently allow attributes to be attached to arbitrary elements.  Hence a Span or Div container will be added if needed.
Extension: old_dashes Selects the pandoc <= 1.8.2.1 behavior for parsing smart dashes: - before a numeral is an en-dash, and -- is an em-dash.  This option only has an effect if smart is enabled.  It is selected automatically for textile input.
Extension: angle_brackets_escapable Allow < and > to be backslash-escaped, as they can be in GitHub flavored Markdown but not original Markdown.  This is implied by pandoc’s default all_symbols_escapable.
Extension: lists_without_preceding_blankline Allow a list to occur right after a paragraph, with no intervening blank space.
Extension: four_space_rule Selects the pandoc <= 2.0 behavior for parsing lists, so that four spaces indent are needed for list item continuation paragraphs.
Extension: spaced_reference_links Allow whitespace between the two components of a reference link, for example,
[foo] [bar].
Extension: hard_line_breaks Causes all newlines within a paragraph to be interpreted as hard line breaks instead of spaces.
Extension: ignore_line_breaks Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being treated as spaces or as hard line breaks.  This option is intended for use with East Asian languages where spaces are not used between words, but text is divided into lines for readability.
Extension: east_asian_line_breaks Causes newlines within a paragraph to be ignored, rather than being treated as spaces or as hard line breaks, when they occur between two East Asian wide characters.  This is a better choice than ignore_line_breaks for texts that include a mix of East Asian wide characters and other characters.
Extension: emoji Parses textual emojis like :smile: as Unicode emoticons.
Extension: tex_math_single_backslash Causes anything between \( and \) to be interpreted as inline TeX math, and anything between \[ and \] to be interpreted as display TeX math. Note: a drawback of this extension is that it precludes escaping ( and [.
Extension: tex_math_double_backslash Causes anything between \\( and \\) to be interpreted as inline TeX math, and anything between \\[ and \\] to be interpreted as display TeX math.
Extension: markdown_attribute By default, pandoc interprets material inside block-level tags as Markdown.  This extension changes the behavior so that Markdown is only parsed inside block-level tags if the tags have the attribute markdown=1.
Extension: mmd_title_block Enables a MultiMarkdown style title block at the top of the document, for example:
Title:   My title Author:  John Doe Date:    September 1, 2008 Comment: This is a sample mmd title block, with a field spanning multiple lines.
See the MultiMarkdown documentation for details.  If pandoc_title_block or yaml_metadata_block is enabled, it will take precedence over mmd_title_block.
Extension: abbreviations Parses PHP Markdown Extra abbreviation keys, like
*[HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language
Note that the pandoc document model does not support abbreviations, so if this extension is enabled, abbreviation keys are simply skipped (as opposed to being parsed as paragraphs).
Extension: autolink_bare_uris Makes all absolute URIs into links, even when not surrounded by pointy braces <...>.
Extension: mmd_link_attributes Parses multimarkdown style key-value attributes on link and image references.  This extension should not be confused with the link_attributes extension.
This is a reference ![image][ref] with multimarkdown attributes.
[ref]: https://path.to/image "Image title" width=20px height=30px id=myId class="myClass1 myClass2"
Extension: mmd_header_identifiers Parses multimarkdown style heading identifiers (in square brackets, after the heading but before any trailing #s in an ATX heading).
Extension: compact_definition_lists Activates the definition list syntax of pandoc 1.12.x and earlier.  This syntax differs from the one described above under Definition lists in several respects:
• No blank line is required between consecutive items of the definition list.
• To get a “tight” or “compact” list, omit space between consecutive items; the space between a term and its definition does not affect anything.
• Lazy wrapping of paragraphs is not allowed: the entire definition must be indented four spaces.
Extension: gutenberg Use Project Gutenberg conventions for plain output: all-caps for strong emphasis, surround by underscores for regular emphasis, add extra blank space around headings.
Extension: sourcepos Include source position attributes when parsing commonmark.  For elements that accept attributes, a data-pos attribute is added; other elements are placed in a surrounding Div or Span elemnet with a data-pos attribute.
Markdown variants In addition to pandoc’s extended Markdown, the following Markdown variants are supported:
• markdown_github (deprecated GitHub-Flavored Markdown)
• markdown_strict (Markdown.pl)
• commonmark (CommonMark)
• gfm (Github-Flavored Markdown)
• commonmark_x (CommonMark with many pandoc extensions)
To see which extensions are supported for a given format, and which are enabled by default, you can use the command
pandoc --list-extensions=FORMAT
where FORMAT is replaced with the name of the format.
Note that the list of extensions for commonmark, gfm, and commonmark_x are defined relative to default commonmark.  So, for example, backtick_code_blocks does not appear as an extension, since it is enabled by default and cannot be disabled.
When the --citeproc option is used, pandoc can automatically generate citations and a bibliography in a number of styles.  Basic usage is
pandoc --citeproc myinput.txt
To use this feature, you will need to have
• a document containing citations (see Extension: citations);
• a source of bibliographic data: either an external bibliography file or a list of references in the document’s YAML metadata
• optionally, a CSL citation style.
Specifying bibliographic data You can specify an external bibliography using the bibliography metadata field in a YAML metadata section or the --bibliography command line argument.  If you want to use multiple bibliography files, you can supply multiple --bibliography arguments or set bibliography metadata field to YAML array.  A bibliography may have any of these formats:
Format     File extension ────────────────────────── BibLaTeX   .bib BibTeX     .bibtex CSL JSON   .json CSL YAML   .yaml
Note that .bib can be used with both BibTeX and BibLaTeX files; use the extension .bibtex to force interpretation as BibTeX.