md2pdf

Convert Markdown → PDF via Pandoc + XeLaTeX. Full LaTeX math + CJK support.

Prerequisites

System packages (apt):

pandoc texlive-xetex texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-fonts-extra texlive-latex-extra texlive-lang-chinese

Quick Convert

bash <skill_dir>/scripts/md2pdf.sh input.md output.pdf

The script auto-detects CJK content, picks suitable fonts, sanitizes emoji, adds TOC, and configures XeLaTeX.

Manual Pandoc Command

For fine-grained control, run pandoc directly:

pandoc input.md -o output.pdf 
  --pdf-engine=xelatex 
  -f markdown-smart 
  -H header.tex 
  -V mainfont="DejaVu Sans" 
  -V monofont="DejaVu Sans Mono" 
  -V geometry:margin=20mm 
  -V fontsize=10pt 
  -V colorlinks=true 
  --highlight-style=tango 
  --toc -V toc-title="Table of Contents"

Where header.tex contains:

usepackage{xeCJK}
setCJKmainfont{<CJK font name>}

Key Details

• Math: Pandoc natively converts $...$ (inline) and $$...$$ (display) to LaTeX math. No MathJax/KaTeX needed.
• CJK fonts: Script auto-detects from: Noto Sans CJK SC > WenQuanYi Micro Hei > Droid Sans Fallback > AR PL UMing CN.
• Emoji: Replaced with text equivalents (✅ → [Y], ❌ → [N], ⭐ → *) since most LaTeX fonts lack emoji glyphs.
• Smart quotes: Use -f markdown-smart to avoid curly quote rendering issues.
• Long tables: Pandoc may struggle with complex tables; keep tables simple or use longtable LaTeX package.

Troubleshooting