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A Pandoc alternative for the 95% case

Pandoc is the most flexible Markdown converter ever built. It is also a 200MB toolchain that takes setup, knowledge of LaTeX, and a willingness to debug TeX errors. For most documents — proposals, memos, resumes, reports — that's overkill.

Elia Kuratli
By Elia Kuratli
·5 min read
Open the converter

When Pandoc is the right answer

  • Math typesetting. Inline LaTeX rendered with KaTeX or PDFTeX is a Pandoc-only output today.
  • Citations and bibliographies. Pandoc reads BibTeX, CSL, and renders bibliographies in dozens of styles.
  • Custom filters. Lua filters that transform the AST before output let you do anything.
  • Multi-format output from one source. Same Markdown out to PDF, EPUB, HTML, DOCX, ODT, with shared templates.
  • Build pipelines. Pandoc is the standard tool in the publishing world. It plugs into make, just, CI.

When this tool is the right answer

  • The output is a proposal, memo, resume, report, white paper, quote, invoice or letter.
  • You don't want to install LaTeX, MiKTeX, MacTeX or Chromium.
  • You want a live PDF preview while you write.
  • You want a cover page, ToC, page numbers and four polished themes by default.
  • You want the Markdown to stay in your browser.
  • You want a one-tab workflow that works on a Chromebook, an iPad with Safari, or a colleague's laptop without admin rights.

What you give up vs. Pandoc

  • No LaTeX math.
  • No citations / bibliography pipelines.
  • No custom Lua filters.
  • No build-time programmatic API.

What you get back

  • Zero install, zero config.
  • Live preview as you type.
  • Cover-page variants, ToC, numbered headings — out of the box.
  • Four document themes, no template authoring required.
  • Browser-only. Your text doesn't leave the tab.

The honest summary

If you maintain a book, a thesis or a paper with citations: install Pandoc, set up a TeX engine, learn the templating system, build your pipeline. The investment pays off.

If you ship client documents, internal reports and resumes: open md2document, paste your Markdown, click export. The investment is fifteen seconds.

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