Pandoc

Pandoc is an extremely useful 'swiss army knife' for converting between different types of markup languages from the command line. For example, it readily builds PDFs with latex, and markdown - both of which are heavily used in academic research.

We do not actively teach how to use Pandoc in the course - but we will utilize it in some lessons where we produce PDF, Word or HTML output from plain text files.

Installation

  • Go to the Pandoc Homepage and follow the installation instructions for your operating system.
  • Linux/Ubuntu users: alternatively sudo apt install pandoc will install pandoc from the command line
  • Mac users: alternatively brew install pandoc will install pandoc from the command line

Verify Your Install

Verify your install by typing the following into a command line:

pandoc --version

The expected output starts with the following information:

pandoc 1.17.2

Ensure you have at least version 1.15.1 installed.

Windows PATH Setting redux

Because we want Pandoc available from the command line (it is by default for Mac and Linux), we again need to update our PATH settings.

Right-click on Computer. Then go to "Properties" and select the tab "Advanced System Settings". Choose "Environment Variables" and select Path from the list of system variables.

Check whether the following path has been added:

    ;C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Pandoc

Windows 7 or 8 machines: If it has not been, and you accepted all defaults during your installation, and didn't have any other non-default setting prior to starting this guide, copy and paste the following string without spaces at the start or end, updating the username:

    ;C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Pandoc

Windows 10 machines: If it has not been added, Click New and paste the following string, updating the username:

    C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Pandoc

Click OK as often as needed.

After you have done this, open a new terminal and try and verify your install.