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Pandoc

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Re: Pandoc

#41

Post by michaelcampbell »

tambourine_man wrote: post #38
michaelcampbell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this same issue, and the same with `jq` and `GNU Parallel`. When you need them you need them, and nothing else quite works, but I have to re-learn them every time.

Set a huge number for your shell history and dedup. You’ll effectively save every command you ever typed in chronological order. You can even append comments to the end of the command for your future self. Then, fzf your history.

I do, and use fzf, and that helps, but with most tools I'm a bit OCD about understanding what I'm doing.

I also use Anki SRS flashcards and put a lot of tool usage exemplars in there; it not only helps me remember a bit of what I need to do, but if nothing else I remember THAT I put it there so I can use that to go look it up again. And this is coming from someone who grew up with and is comfortable with `--help` screens and man pages.

Re: Pandoc

#42

Post by sixhobbits »

andy99 wrote: post #35
kugurerdem wrote: post #5

This is one of the most useful programs that I use. I use it for turning .md files into .html or .pdf. I use it for creating slides with it. I even use it for fixing the hard-wrapped text I write in vim before sending emails. When I write in vim, I prefer the text to be hard-wrapped, but for emails, I like it better when the text is not wrapped. I recommend arp242's essay explaining the problem with hard-wrapping [1]…

I'll probably lose some nerd cred: I do most of my writing in MS word, I find it easier to cut and paste and add footnotes and section headers. And then I use Pandoc to convert the docx into the format I want, usually HTML*. I used to do markdown in vim but I found that for most of what I do I prefer word. I do write code in vim... * I use this css file when converting: https://gist.github.com/killercup/5917178

We do the opposite of this - we write in markdown but sometimes need to get feedback in Google Docs. Pandoc doesn't convert to google docs so well, but it does to docx, so our pipeline is

markdown -> pandoc -> docx -> upload to google doc -> share

Re: Pandoc

#43

Post by greenpresident »

andy99 wrote: post #35
kugurerdem wrote: post #5

This is one of the most useful programs that I use. I use it for turning .md files into .html or .pdf. I use it for creating slides with it. I even use it for fixing the hard-wrapped text I write in vim before sending emails. When I write in vim, I prefer the text to be hard-wrapped, but for emails, I like it better when the text is not wrapped. I recommend arp242's essay explaining the problem with hard-wrapping [1]…

I'll probably lose some nerd cred: I do most of my writing in MS word, I find it easier to cut and paste and add footnotes and section headers. And then I use Pandoc to convert the docx into the format I want, usually HTML*. I used to do markdown in vim but I found that for most of what I do I prefer word. I do write code in vim... * I use this css file when converting: https://gist.github.com/killercup/5917178

For documents that require a longer process, I prefer formats that I can use comments and TODO in, with a text editor that feels familiar.

Other than that, I strongly agree. Word is also de facto standard when you want others to open and edit your document.

Re: Pandoc

#44

Post by kugurerdem »

tambourine_man wrote: post #27
kugurerdem wrote: post #5

This is one of the most useful programs that I use. I use it for turning .md files into .html or .pdf. I use it for creating slides with it. I even use it for fixing the hard-wrapped text I write in vim before sending emails. When I write in vim, I prefer the text to be hard-wrapped, but for emails, I like it better when the text is not wrapped. I recommend arp242's essay explaining the problem with hard-wrapping [1]…

Interesting. And how do you send and read emails? Mutt?

I used to use Mutt, but now I don't because my email has its own special domain, and the email hosting service I use doesn't let me export IMAP and POP3 details unless I pay them.

Currently, I just open vim in the terminal, write what I need, then copy the text. I open dmenu using a shortcut, type something like "unwr", which is sufficient for selecting the "unwrap-clipboard" script of mine, press enter, which unwraps the text on the clipboard. Finally, I paste it in the email client.

I know it might seem a bit tricky, but it's better than what I did before. I used to set the textwidth to a really large number like 9999, highlight the text I wanted to unwrap, and then type 'gqq' for formatting. And don't forget, you also have to wrap the text back if you don't want to change the original format of the text file you wrote.

You can use soft-wrapping in vim, but I don't prefer it. Soft-wrapping is not as convenient to me as hard-wrapped text when using vim shortcuts. For instance, if you are using soft-wrapping in vim and you press 'o,' the insertion mode will start at the end of the paragraph because vim will consider the entire paragraph as a single line. However, there are many situations where I only want to insert text in the middle of a paragraph. You will also most likely set j to act like gj and k to act like gk, to make the cursor move between lines that are visually separated but actually form a single line. I don't like this either.

Re: Pandoc

#45

Post by maxerickson »

greenpresident wrote: post #43
andy99 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll probably lose some nerd cred: I do most of my writing in MS word, I find it easier to cut and paste and add footnotes and section headers. And then I use Pandoc to convert the docx into the format I want, usually HTML*. I used to do markdown in vim but I found that for most of what I do I prefer word. I do write code in vim... * I use this css file when converting: https://gist.github.com/killercup/5917178

For documents that require a longer process, I prefer formats that I can use comments and TODO in, with a text editor that feels familiar. Other than that, I strongly agree. Word is also de facto standard when you want others to open and edit your document.

Word has comments. They work well as todo markers if they don't need to be retained (just make a comment to mark something and then delete it when it is resolved).

Re: Pandoc

#46

Post by mapreduce »

A question to experienced Pandoc users:

I want to write a small book that I want to generate in 3 formats: HTML pages, EPUB and PDF. What is the best input format (source format) for the book? Pandoc Markdown? CommonMark? GFM?

I'm a little hesitant to committing myself to Pandoc Markdown or any Markdown because they all have tiny differences with each other. Each is like its own standard.

I considered Org-mode for some time but there are so many edge cases in which Pandoc does not parse Org-mode properly. I mean sometimes simple things like internal links are not rendered properly by Pandoc in the generated output.

So what's the best format to write the input in? Any ideas? Opinions?

Re: Pandoc

#47

Post by susam »

Pandoc is the FFmpeg of document conversion!

While I am very fond of both tools, Pandoc's command-line interface seamlessly integrates with my understanding and intuition, unlike FFmpeg's byzantine command line options and concepts. With FFmpeg, I frequently find myself documenting specific incantations and recipes in my notes, lest I should forget how to solve certain conversion problems. Pandoc, on the other hand, has spared me from such cognitive overload.

This should not be taken as criticism of FFmpeg though. FFmpeg is solving very complex problems too. Both Pandoc and FFmpeg are excellent tools. Both tools have saved me hundreds of hours of research, experimentation, trial and error, etc.

Re: Pandoc

#48

Post by mooreds »

mapreduce wrote: post #46

A question to experienced Pandoc users: I want to write a small book that I want to generate in 3 formats: HTML pages, EPUB and PDF. What is the best input format (source format) for the book? Pandoc Markdown? CommonMark? GFM? I'm a little hesitant to committing myself to Pandoc Markdown or any Markdown because they all have tiny differences with each other. Each is like its own standard. I considered Org-mode for so…

I'd use leanpub markdown. They generate those formats plus you get a page for the book, can charge for it, and advertise it. (Some of those tasks cost money).

Won't work if you want to keep everything local, though.

Re: Pandoc

#49

Post by mapreduce »

mooreds wrote: post #48
mapreduce wrote: post #46

A question to experienced Pandoc users: I want to write a small book that I want to generate in 3 formats: HTML pages, EPUB and PDF. What is the best input format (source format) for the book? Pandoc Markdown? CommonMark? GFM? I'm a little hesitant to committing myself to Pandoc Markdown or any Markdown because they all have tiny differences with each other. Each is like its own standard. I considered Org-mode for so…

I'd use leanpub markdown. They generate those formats plus you get a page for the book, can charge for it, and advertise it. (Some of those tasks cost money). Won't work if you want to keep everything local, though.

Thanks! Didn't know Leanpub has its own markdown too. Yes I do want to keep everything local.

Re: Pandoc

#50

Post by nerdponx »

banga wrote: post #30
spinningslate wrote: post #6

Pandoc is one of my favourite all time tools. As the website says: > If you need to convert files from one markup format into another, pandoc is your swiss-army knife It also sits at the heart of Quarto[0], which adds Jupyter-like code execution (in R, Python and others) into document production. Combined with RStudio as an IDE, it's my new favourite way to write anything - from static documents to full on code noteb…

Codebraid[0] is another option for integrating code execution with Pandoc. I find myself using Quarto for building sites and Codebraid more for single documents. Both great tools building on Pandoc. -- [0]: https://codebraid.org/

Why do all these tools pretend that knitr / R Markdown never existed, and that they have invented some novel concept? I looked through the docs of Quarto, Jupytext, and now Codebraid, and none of them mention prior art.

There's a long legacy here, it does nobody any good to disregard it. Maybe Knuth is well-acknowledged for his invention, but I think for instance Yihui Xie is a little under-recognized.

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