CODEWITHSUNDEEP
latexyamlpandoc
ChristopherE
ChristopherE

Reputation: 135

Pandoc Error producing PDF with markdown body text and YAML metadata file

I'm running the following Pandoc 2.0.3 command on the Mac Terminal command line:

pandoc one.md "metadata.yaml" -o two.pdf

This should take the markdown file one.md and output two.pdf using the yaml file metadata.yaml, a minimal version of which is:

---
header-includes:
- \usepackage{fancyhdr}
...

This Pandoc run produces a PDF as expected for the following version of one.md:

# Report

However, it fails to produce a PDF for the following version of one.md, which contains body text:

# Report

Lorem.

The resulting error message is:

Error producing PDF.
! LaTeX Error: Can be used only in preamble.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.65 header-includes: - \usepackage

I don't understand why including that one word creates a failure.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 470

Answers (1)

tarleb
tarleb

Reputation: 22544

Your one.md likely doesn't end with a newline. Pandoc concatenates all input files, adding a single newline between files. So the resulting input will be:

# Report

Lorem.
---
header-includes:
- \usepackage{fancyhdr}
...

As a result, the opening dashes of the YAML block are interpreted as underlines for Lorem., which is then read as a second-level header. This doesn't happen if the line above the --- dashes is an ATX-style header.

Just add a newline to the end of one.md and everything should work the way you expected.

Upvotes: 3

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