Pandokoma - versatile KOMA-script template for Pandoc

Pandokoma is a powerful and versatile KOMA-script template for Pandoc.

Version 0.9.3. Compatible with Pandoc 3.1.9

Written by Julien Dutant https://github.com/jdutant

Introduction

Pandokoma provides control for a large subset of the KOMA-script classes features directly from a source document's metadata, such as:

setting and defining KOMA font styles
typesetting division headings
typesetting page headers and footers
typesetting table of content entries
redefining footnote styles
defining custom colours
typesetting title pages - either via KOMA's commands (\frontispiece, \extratitle, ...) or by directly providing LaTeX code for title pages,
loading LaTeX packages
and more.

These are controlled by YAML metadata fields. For instance, the following defines a new headerauthor font style and specifies verso (left-side) page headers to display the name "Jane Doe" in that style:

newkomafont:
- element: headerauthor
  font: 'Libertinus Serif'
  fontoptions: 'Numbers=OldStyle'
  command: \scshape

lehead: \usekomafont{headauthor}Jane Doe

See below for more examples or look at the pandokoma-options.yaml file to see all the available options.

Quick start. Download the pandokoma.latex file, place it next to your source document, and run Pandoc on your document with that template:

pandoc --standalone source.md --output destination.pdf --template pandokoma.latex

Add the option --metadata-file mystylefile.yaml if you want to read the options from a separate yaml file instead. Several examples can be found in this repository.

Most of the template options require your document to be one of the KOMA-script classes scrartcl (article), scrbook (book) or scrreprt (report), so your metavariables should contain:

documentclass: scrartcl

Advanced font options will typically require using LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX as PDF generator. Use the --pdf-engine option, e.g:

pandoc -s source.md -o destination.pdf --template pandokoma.latex --pdf-engine lualatex --metadata-file mystylefile.yaml

Repository overview. This repository contains:

pandokoma.latex the main template.
pandokoma-bare.latex a lighter alternative that doesn't include titlepage templates.
example folders containing various example uses.
code folder that contains the source code for the template. The template.latex file can be used as template, but it is dependent on the associated title template files (called as 'partials'). The root Makefile builds the self-standing pandokoma.latex from those.

The repository is under MIT License: you can copy, use and modify it as you wish, provided you mention its copyright and license. See LICENSE for details.

Contributions, bug reports, PR are welcome. Possible contributions:

more examples of use
title page templates
documentation
extensions of the template

Description

Background on Pandoc, LaTeX/PDF and KOMA-script classes

Pandoc is a universal document converter that can (inter alia) generate PDF outputs via LaTeX.

KOMA-script is a bundle of LaTeX document classes and packages developed by Markus Kohm for good typography and versatile typesetting. They are included in standard LaTeX distributions and extensively documented (in German too). They notably include the scrartcl, scrbook and scrreport document classes to typeset articles, books and reports.

Pandoc already affords some control of PDF output typesetting via a source document's metavariables. If a source is in markdown format, these can be specified in a metadata block in YAML format] at the beginning of the document, e.g.:

---
title: My Oeuvre
author: Seymour Buttz
date: Feb 22th, 2022
documentclass: book
mainfont: Libertinus Serif
mathfont: Libertinus Math
fontsize: 12pt 
---

Alternatively (and in particular, when the source isn't in markdown), the YAML block above can be placed in separate text file, e.g. sytle.yaml, given to Pandoc via the command line option --metadata-file. Pandoc can combine metadata in the source (like author and title) with metadata in a separate YAML file (like typesetting options).

In particular, Pandoc can use the KOMA classes when converting document to LaTeX/PDF output. It gives some control over LaTeX typesetting options, such as fontsize, lang, mainfont mathfont, papersize, etc. But these only cover a small subset of what the KOMA classes can do. For an advanced typesetting project like a monograph, an academic article, or even a PhD thesis, more detailed control is needed. With Pandoc alone the only way to do this is by introducing LaTeX code in the source document (or associated metadata file).

The Pandokoma template

Pandokoma greatly extends Pandoc's ability to control the design of LaTeX/PDF outputs from metavariable options. The YAML syntax for metavariable options is much more legibile and easy to learn that LaTeX. While you will probably need to know LaTeX and the KOMA-script user documentation for advanced projects, you should be able to learn a lot already by looking at the examples here.

Pandoc uses Pandoc template files to convert documents to various text-based output formats. Its template for LaTeX output (which is then converted into PDF) can be seen by running:

pandoc -D latex > pandoc-default-template.latex

Pandoc template files can make use of a document's metavariables. Pandoc's default LaTeX template already takes into account of a number of metavariable fields such as documentclass, fontsize, mainfont, mathfont, papersize, etc. But it can't do more advanced design such as the content of headers and footers, footnote style, specific heading fonts, title page elements beyond author, title and date.

For more advanced typesetting, your options would be (a) editing Pandoc's LaTeX ouput, (b) introducing large blocks of LaTeX code in your document (either directly or in Pandoc's header-include field) or (c) writing your own Pandoc template. Option (a) is impractical if you update your document. Option (b) is limited and not readable. Option (c) requires a good knowledge of both LaTeX and the Pandoc template syntax. Pandoc template syntax is simple^[Though writing Pandoc templates for LaTeX can be tricky. For instance, you will get mysterious "perhaps \item missing" errors if you have newlines within LaTeX square-bracketed command options.], but it doesn't make for very legibile documents and a LaTeX template will require you to go over much more LaTeX detail than you would need just for the design.

Enter Pandokoma. Pandokoma is an alternative to Pandoc's default LaTeX template. While it offers some ready-made title templates, its main emphasis is on versatility: it is meant to open up most of the KOMA-script classes design options to be set via a document's metavariables. This means that instead of writing a new Pandoc template running to 500+ lines of mixed LaTeX/Pandoc template syntax, you can specify a fine-grained PDF design in a shorter and much more legible YAML file.

For advanced control of the design you will still need to be familar with LaTeX and the KOMA-script user guide. But you can already understand and achieve a lot by working from the example files here.

Usage

Download one of the template files pandokoma.latex or pandokoma-bare.latex.

pandokoma.latex is the full template, including title page templates
pandokoma-bare.latex is a lighter version without title page templates.

Place it in your document's folder, Pandoc's data directory, or some other folder. Call Pandoc on your source while specifying the new template:

pandoc --standalone source.md --template path/to/pandokoma.latex --output output.pdf

KOMA options are specified through the source document's "metadata variables". With a markdown source these can be set with a YAML metadata preamble in the document itself. Alternatively, they can be provided through a separate YAML file:

pandoc --standalone source.md --template path/to/pandokoma.latex 
--metadata-file path/to/source-style.yaml --output output.pdf

Most of the template options require you to use one of the KOMA-script document classes scrartcl (article), scrbook (book) or scrreprt (report). You can specify this through your source document's metavariables (either in the document itself, or as separate file):

documentclass: scrartcl

Or give it to Pandoc's via the -M command line option:

pandoc -s source.md --template path/to/pandokma.latex -M documentclass=scrartcl -o output.pdf

Detail of available options, along with examples are in the pandokoma-options.yaml file. It is recommended to design your own metadata file by copying relevant sections of the configuration file into your own metadata file. But there is no need to use this yaml file in addition to yours: the template alone sets all the default options.

For further examples of configurations see the sample.yaml files in this repository's example folders.

Title templates are activated with a titletemplate-X variable:

titletemplate-A: true

You can create your own title template as titletemplate-custom, either by modifying pandokoma.latex directly or by modifying titletemplate-custom.latex and recompiling pandokoma (see Customizing and contributing below). Raw LaTeX code for title pages can also be provided directly in the metadata. See pandokoma-options.yaml for details.

Advanced usage

Setting a field with an empty value

Sometimes you want to set a field, but give it an empty value. For instance, you may want to redefine the LaTeX command \sectionmarkformat to be empty, in order to remove section numbers in page headers marks. We do this by setting the sectionmarkformat metadata key. The following won't work, however, because they are equivalent to not setting any value for that key:

sectionmarkformat:
sectionmarkformat: false
sectionmarkformat: ''
sectionmarkformat: ' '

Instead, you should set the key to the LaTeX \relax command that does nothing:

sectionmarkformat: \relax

The template converts this to the LaTeX code:

\renewcommand{\sectionmarkformat}{\relax}

Which gives the desired result. (Note, a baacklashed escaped space \ won't work: if alone in a yaml metadata field the last space seems to be ignored and it's interpreted as a backslash, \textbackslash{} in LaTeX.)

Modifying the template and adding new title templates

The template is written in Pandoc's template syntax. The KOMA class user guide and the Pandoc manual will be useful.

Running the make (or make build) command at the root of this repository will compile the pandokoma.latex and pandokoma-bare.latex files from the source files in code. The source files are:

template.latex, the main template.
titletemplate-X.latex title template files.

Instead of rebuilding pandokoma-latex each time, you can tell Pandoc to use code/template.latex directly as a document template, provided the title template files are copied next to it. It calls them as template 'partials' (cf. Pandoc's template syntax).

The titletemplate-custom.latex file can be used to develop a new title template. It is activated by setting titletemplate-custom: true in the source's metadata.

To provide further title templates than A, B add to the following lines in template.latex:

$elseif(titletemplate-custom)$
  $titletemplate-custom()$
$elseif(titletemplate-A)$
  $titletemplate-A()$
$elseif(titletemplate-B)$
  $titletemplate-B()$

For example:

...
$elseif(titletemplate-B)$
  $titletemplate-B()$
$elseif(titletemplate-tufte)$
  $titletemplate-tufte()$
$elseif(titletemplate-modern-thesis)$
  $titletemplate-modern-thesis()$

The make build command will find these lines and insert the corresponding files titletemplate-tufte.latex, etc. in the final pandokoma.latex.

Contributing

PRs welcome: improvements on the main template, title templates, examples.

Credits

Pandokoma is based on:

pandoc's default latex template by John MacFarlane https://pandoc.org/
arabica by Martin Maga https://github.com/periodicpoint/arabica
pandoc-latex-template by Pascal Wagler https://github.com/Wandmalfarbe/pandoc-latex-template
pandoc KOMA template by Karl Voigt https://github.com/novoid/LaTeX-KOMA-template

dialoa/pandokoma