pandoc-server(1) Pandoc User's Guide pandoc-server(1)
SYNOPSIS
pandoc-server [options]
DESCRIPTION
pandoc-server is a web server that can perform pandoc conversions. It
can be used either as a running server or as a CGI program.
To use pandoc-server as a CGI program, rename it (or symlink it) as
pandoc-server.cgi. (Note: if you symlink it, you may need to adjust
your webserver's configuration in order to allow it to follow symlinks
for the CGI script.)
All pandoc functions are run in the PandocPure monad, which ensures
that they can do no I/O operations on the server. This should provide
a high degree of security. This security does, however, impose certain
limitations:
o PDFs cannot be produced.
o Filters are not supported.
o Resources cannot be fetched via HTTP.
o Any images, include files, or other resources needed for the document
conversion must be explicitly included in the request, via the files
field (see below under API).
OPTIONS
--port NUM
HTTP port on which to run the server. Default: 3030.
--timeout SECONDS
Timeout in seconds, after which a conversion is killed.
Default: 2.
When pandoc-server is run as a CGI program, this option can be
set via the PANDOC_SERVER_TIMEOUT environment variable.
--help Print this help.
--version
Print version.
API
Root endpoint
The root (/) endpoint accepts only POST requests.
Response
It returns a converted document in one of the following formats (in
order of preference), depending on the Accept header:
o application/octet-stream
o text/plain
o application/json
If the result is a binary format (e.g., epub or docx) and the content
is returned as plain text or JSON, the binary will be base64 encoded.
If a JSON response is given, it will have one of the following formats.
If the conversion is not successful:
{ "error": string with the error message }
If the conversion is successful:
{ "output": string with textual or base64-encoded binary output,
"base64": boolean (true means the "output" is base64-encoded),
"messages": array of message objects (see below) }
Each element of the "messages" array will have the format
{ "message": string,
"verbosity": string (either "WARNING" or "INFO") }
Request
The body of the POST request should be a JSON object, with the
following fields. Only the text field is required; all of the others
can be omitted for default values. When there are several string
alternatives, the first one given is the default.
text (string)
The document to be converted. Note: if the from format is
binary (e.g., epub or docx), then text should be a base64
encoding of the document.
from (string, default "markdown")
The input format, possibly with extensions, just as it is
specified on the pandoc command line.
to (string, default "html")
The output format, possibly with extensions, just as it is
specified on the pandoc command line.
shift-heading-level-by (integer, default 0)
Increase or decrease the level of all headings.
indented-code-classes (array of strings)
List of classes to be applied to indented Markdown code blocks.
default-image-extension (string)
Extension to be applied to image sources that lack extensions
(e.g. ".jpg").
metadata (JSON map)
String-valued metadata.
tab-stop (integer, default 4)
Tab stop (spaces per tab).
track-changes ("accept"|"reject"|"all")
Specifies what to do with insertions, deletions, and comments
produced by the MS Word "Track Changes" feature. Only affects
docx input.
abbreviations (file path)
List of strings to be regarded as abbreviations when parsing
Markdown. See --abbreviations in pandoc(1) for details.
standalone (boolean, default false)
If true, causes a standalone document to be produced, using the
default template or the custom template specified using
template. If false, a fragment will be produced.
template (string)
String contents of a document template (see Templates in
pandoc(1) for the format).
variables (JSON map)
Variables to be interpolated in the template. (See Templates in
pandoc(1).)
dpi (integer, default 96)
Dots-per-inch to use for conversions between pixels and other
measurements (for image sizes).
wrap ("auto"|"preserve"|"none")
Text wrapping option: either "auto" (automatic hard-wrapping to
fit within a column width), "preserve" (insert newlines where
they are present in the source), or "none" (don't insert any
unnecessary newlines at all).
columns (integer, default 72)
Column width (affects text wrapping and calculation of table
column widths in plain text formats)
table-of-contents (boolean, default false)
Include a table of contents (in supported formats).
toc-depth (integer, default 3)
Depth of sections to include in the table of contents.
list-of-figures (boolean, default false)
Include a list of figures (in supported formats).
list-of-tables (boolean, default false)
Include a list of tables (in supported formats).
strip-comments (boolean, default false)
Causes HTML comments to be stripped in Markdown or Textile
source, instead of being passed through to the output format.
syntax-highlighting ("default"|"none"|"idiomatic"|style)
The method used for code syntax highlighting. Setting a
specific style causes highlighting to be performed with the
internal highlighting engine, using KDE syntax definitions and
styles. The "idiomatic" method uses a format-specific
highlighter if one is available, or the default style if the
target format has no idiomatic highlighting method. Setting
this option to none disables all syntax highlighting. The
"default" method uses a format-specific default.
Standard styles are "pygments" (the default), "kate",
"monochrome", "breezeDark", "espresso", "zenburn", "haddock",
and "tango". Alternatively, the path of a .theme with a KDE
syntax theme may be used (in this case, the relevant file
contents must also be included in files, see below).
The default for HTML, EPUB, Docx, Ms, Man, and LaTeX output is
to use the internal highlighter with the default style; Typst
output relies on Typst's own syntax highlighting system by
default.
embed-resources
Embed images, scripts, styles and other resources in an HTML
document using data URIs. Note that this will not work unless
the contents of all external resources are included under files.
html-q-tags (boolean, default false)
Use <q> elements in HTML instead of literal quotation marks.
ascii (boolean, default false)
Use entities and escapes when possible to avoid non-ASCII
characters in the output.
reference-links (boolean, default false)
Create reference links rather than inline links in Markdown
output.
reference-location ("document"|"section"|"block")
Determines whether link references and footnotes are placed at
the end of the document, the end of the section, or the end of
the block (e.g. paragraph), in certain formats. (See pandoc(1)
under --reference-location.)
setext-headers (boolean, default false)
Use Setext (underlined) headings instead of ATX (#-prefixed) in
Markdown output.
top-level-division ("default"|"part"|"chapter"|"section")
Determines how top-level headings are interpreted in LaTeX,
ConTeXt, DocBook, and TEI. The "default" value tries to choose
the best interpretation based on heuristics.
number-sections (boolean, default false)
Automatically number sections (in supported formats).
number-offset (array of integers)
Offsets to be added to each component of the section number.
For example, [1] will cause the first section to be numbered "2"
and the first subsection "2.1"; [0,1] will cause the first
section to be numbered "1" and the first subsection "1.2."
html-math-method
("plain"|"webtex"|"gladtex"|"mathml"|"mathjax"|"katex")
Determines how math is represented in HTML.
listings (boolean, default false)
Use the listings package to format code in LaTeX output.
incremental (boolean, default false)
If true, lists appear incrementally by default in slide shows.
slide-level (integer)
Heading level that deterimes slide divisions in slide shows.
The default is to pick the highest heading level under which
there is body text.
section-divs (boolean, default false)
Arrange the document into a hierarchy of nested sections based
on the headings.
email-obfuscation ("none"|"references"|"javascript")
Determines how email addresses are obfuscated in HTML.
identifier-prefix (string)
Prefix to be added to all automatically-generated identifiers.
title-prefix (string)
Prefix to be added to the title in the HTML header.
reference-doc (file path)
Reference doc to use in creating docx or odt or pptx. See
pandoc(1) under --reference-doc for details. The contents of
the file must be included under files.
split-level (integer, default 1)
Heading level at which documents are split in EPUB or chunked
HTML.
epub-cover-image (file path)
Cover image for EPUB. The contents of the file must be included
under files.
epub-metadata (file path)
Path of file containing Dublin core XML elements to be used for
EPUB metadata. The contents of the file must be included under
files.
epub-subdirectory (string, default "EPUB")
Name of content subdirectory in the EPUB container.
epub-fonts (array of file paths)
Fonts to include in the EPUB. The fonts themselves must be
included in files (see below).
ipynb-output ("best"|"all"|"none")
Determines how ipynb output cells are treated. all means that
all of the data formats included in the original are preserved.
none means that the contents of data cells are omitted. best
causes pandoc to try to pick the richest data block in each
output cell that is compatible with the output format.
citeproc (boolean, default false)
Causes citations to be processed using citeproc. See Citations
in pandoc(1) for details.
bibliography (array of file paths)
Files containing bibliographic data. The contents of the files
must be included in files.
csl (file path)
CSL style file. The contents of the file must be included in
files.
cite-method ("citeproc"|"natbib"|"biblatex")
Determines how citations are formatted in LaTeX output.
files (JSON mapping of file paths to base64-encoded strings)
Any files needed for the conversion, including images referred
to in the document source, should be included here. Binary data
must be base64-encoded. Textual data may be left as it is,
unless it is also valid base 64 data, in which case it will be
interpreted that way.
/batch endpoint
The /batch endpoint behaves like the root endpoint, except for these
two points:
o It accepts a JSON array, each element of which is a JSON object like
the one expected by the root endpoint.
o It returns a JSON array of JSON results.
This endpoint can be used to convert a sequence of small snippets in
one request.
/version endpoint
The /version endpoint accepts a GET request and returns the pandoc
version as a plain or JSON-encoded string, depending on Accept headers.
/babelmark endpoint
The /babelmark endpoint accepts a GET request with the following query
parameters:
o text (required string)
o from (optional string, default is "markdown")
o to (optional string, default is "html")
o standalone (optional boolean, default is false)
It returns a JSON object with fields html and version. This endpoint
is designed to support the Babelmark website.
AUTHORS
Copyright 2022 John MacFarlane (jgm@berkeley.edu). Released under the
GPL, version 2 or greater. This software carries no warranty of any
kind. (See COPYRIGHT for full copyright and warranty notices.)
The Pandoc source code may be downloaded from
<https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc> or
<https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases>. Further documentation is
available at <https://pandoc.org>.
pandoc 3.8 August 15, 2022 pandoc-server(1)
pandoc 3.8 - Generated Wed Sep 10 16:13:32 CDT 2025