How to put markdown pages onto new PDF pages with Pandoc?

Question

Pandoc allows a user to translate multiple Markdown input files into one PDF file.

pandoc --pdf-engine=xelatex -o test.pdf *.md

With this call, all Markdown pages are continuously listed in the PDF output without any new-page. I would like to start a new PDF page per Markdown file.

How to add a \newpage after or before every inserted Markdown file?

How about `for f in *.md; do cat "$f"; printf "\\newpage"; done | pandoc --pdf... -o ...` — Mark Setchell, May 12 '19 at 20:38
Or maybe `pandoc ... <(gawk '1; ENDFILE{print "\\newpage"}' *.md)` — Mark Setchell, May 12 '19 at 20:58
@MarkSetchell `\newpage` is a LaTeX command. If added to a Markdown file, it won't be interpreted as LaTeX content, right? — Paebbels, May 12 '19 at 21:30
Oh I see. I understood your question to mean that you knew `/newpage` worked but you just weren't sure how to feed it in between markdown documents. I wasn't sure if it would work either, so I just commented rather than answering. I'll think some more today... — Mark Setchell, May 13 '19 at 06:08
Maybe try this... https://stackoverflow.com/a/29642392/2836621 — Mark Setchell, May 13 '19 at 07:46
@Paebbels yes, pandoc supports TeX inside markdown, see https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#raw-htmltex — mb21, May 13 '19 at 08:05
@MarkSetchell please compose an answer so I can accept it as a solution, because Pandoc accepts embedded LaTeX code. — Paebbels, May 14 '19 at 23:19

Mark Setchell · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-15T09:32:06.883

2

If you use GNU awk, i.e. gawk, with multiple files, it has an extension that triggers at the end of each file so you can use that to insert "newpage" commands like this:

gawk '1; ENDFILE{print "\\newpage"}' *.md | pandoc --pdf-engine=xelatex -o test.pdf

The 1 in gawk evaluates to "True" which causes gawk to do its default action, which is to print the current line, so that means all lines get printed, in addition to the "newpage" commands at the end of each file.

You can probably get the same result with GNU sed if you add the -s option to treat each document as separate, so you get a separate "last line" for each document:

sed -se '$a\\\newpage' doc*.md | pandoc ...

edited May 15 '19 at 09:32

answered May 15 '19 at 09:22

Mark Setchell

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While this answer is correct in adding a raw LaTeX command like `\newpage` into the Markdown file to solve the problem, I would like to see a more neutral answer. Using `awk` or `sed` is a Linux-biased answer not very suitable for Pandoc users on Windows platforms. Otherwise it's a good answer. – Paebbels May 25 '19 at 22:02
Sorry, I wasn't aware of that from your question. I'll have a think about Windows-specific solutions, but for the moment, I do know you can install `gawk` on Windows easily enough. – Mark Setchell May 26 '19 at 09:03
You can add multiple sections to your answer. 1) a gneric answer about `\newpage` and Pandoc accepting embedded raw LaTeX commands. 2) a linux-based answer using `gawk` or `sed`. 3) a Windows suitable answer using e.g. PowerShell commands. – Paebbels May 26 '19 at 14:02

How to put markdown pages onto new PDF pages with Pandoc?

1 Answers1