Pandoc — The Complete Guide: Write a Report Once, Export to Word, PDF and HTML
Pandoc is a command-line document converter that knows dozens of formats. Its most common use is writing technical documentation and reports in plain text (Markdown) and producing Word or PDF from them in an organisation’s template — without any copy-and-paste.
Pandoc
John MacFarlane
A universal document converter — Markdown, Word, LaTeX, HTML and PDF, so a report is written once and exported anywhere.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Dozens of formats — Markdown, Word, ODT, LaTeX, HTML, EPUB, PowerPoint and more.
- Templates — a reference Word file that sets styles, headings and margins.
- Citations — bibliographies in CSL styles.
- Filters — automatic adjustments to the document during conversion.
- PDF — through a LaTeX engine or HTML engines.
What to know
There is no graphical interface, and PDF output needs an additional engine. The pay-off: the report lives as a text file that you can keep in Git and compare between revisions. Licensed under GPL-2.0 — free for any use.
Related tools
For reports with code and charts — Quarto. For fast typesetting — Typst. For a Markdown editor with an interface — Zettlr, which exports through Pandoc.
Quarto
Posit
Technical reports from code and data — Python, R or Julia into Word, PDF, HTML and slides.
Get it from the vendor
Typst
Typst
Modern typesetting for technical reports and equations — simpler syntax than LaTeX and instant compiling.
Get it from the vendor
Zettlr
Zettlr project
A Markdown editor for technical writing and theses — Zotero citations, LaTeX equations and export via Pandoc.
Get it from the vendor
Zotero
Corporation for Digital Scholarship
Reference and bibliography manager — save papers and standards, annotate PDFs and cite automatically in Word.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
Pandoc is the bridge between writing in plain text and the document the client expects to receive. Worth knowing even if you only use it through other tools.