Pandoc Lua Filters

pandoc.org145 pointsby ankitg1212 comments

Discussion summary

Pandoc Lua filters are used for document conversions and automation, with recent discussions about their capabilities and potential improvements.

What the discussion says

Some users explore making Pandoc reactive or incremental updates.
Others highlight Pandoc's web browser integration and Lua filter applications.
Concerns about Pandoc's complexity and documentation clarity are mentioned.

“Pandoc Lua filters help solve issues on DOCX and PDF conversions.”
— kalcode

“Pandoc has been around for a while, with recent updates making it more web-friendly.”
— leephillips

Comments

Hacker News

I've always wondered if pandoc can be made reactive. Say markdown to Pandoc AST.

If one changes something, a quick update to the AST would happen incrementally.

Now with all these llm I might actually see if it can be done.

by chaoxu

Look at flag --standalone. At least for html output pandoc seems to be able to handle something that feels like partial pandoc input in practice and produce html output that behaves like a snippet.

Pandoc AST - format called "native" - parses faster than pandoc markdown.

by dapperdrake

I liked the Lua filters for solving issues on DOCX stuff for Markdown to Docx.

For PDF stuff I haven't needed much Lua filters since switching to WeasyPrint for the PDF engine.

by kalcode

Lua filters for Pandoc have been around for a quite a while. What’s newer is Pandoc’s ability to be used in web browsers. There’s a bit more about this and a general rundown of Pandoc in my recent article for LWN:

https://lwn.net/Articles/1064692/

by leephillips

Is there anyone feeling that Pandoc is ever increasingly bloated? I have used Lua filters a decade ago [1] and the current documentation is nothing like my memories. I'm not even sure that how much of Lua scripts remain compatible across different Pandoc versions.

[1] https://github.com/mearie/mearie.github.io/blob/source/res/w...

by lifthrasiir

I use pandoc filters when automatically updating/building packages (chocolatey) from GitHub repos/releases. When I built them I remember the documentation and API much less than this. As a developer I might have been easily overwhelmed by today's docs. On the other hand: today I guess those docs are rather read/ used by an AI than any human.

by riedel

We use it for seven years and it still runs fine when we update Pandoc - we usually always update things. I don’t remember anything about the docs, so not sure what changed.

by a1o

I might be worried if it wasn't pandoc. It's always been bulletproof for me.

by fwip

With a tagline of "a universal document converter" it is almost a guarantee to become a complicated program but how much of it is being used for any single conversion?

Two more examples:

Rclone is "bloated" but it needs to be in order to fulfill its purpose.

ZFS is "bloated" because it combines volumes and filesystems but breaking the Unix philosophy also enables a different kind of synergy and simplicity elsewhere.

by zenoprax

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Hacker News
I've always wondered if pandoc can be made reactive. Say markdown to Pandoc AST.
If one changes something, a quick update to the AST would happen incrementally.
Now with all these llm I might actually see if it can be done.
by chaoxu
Look at flag --standalone. At least for html output pandoc seems to be able to handle something that feels like partial pandoc input in practice and produce html output that behaves like a snippet.
Pandoc AST - format called "native" - parses faster than pandoc markdown.
by dapperdrake
I liked the Lua filters for solving issues on DOCX stuff for Markdown to Docx.
For PDF stuff I haven't needed much Lua filters since switching to WeasyPrint for the PDF engine.
by kalcode
Lua filters for Pandoc have been around for a quite a while. What’s newer is Pandoc’s ability to be used in web browsers. There’s a bit more about this and a general rundown of Pandoc in my recent article for LWN:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1064692/
by leephillips
Is there anyone feeling that Pandoc is ever increasingly bloated? I have used Lua filters a decade ago [1] and the current documentation is nothing like my memories. I'm not even sure that how much of Lua scripts remain compatible across different Pandoc versions.
[1] https://github.com/mearie/mearie.github.io/blob/source/res/w...
by lifthrasiir
I use pandoc filters when automatically updating/building packages (chocolatey) from GitHub repos/releases. When I built them I remember the documentation and API much less than this. As a developer I might have been easily overwhelmed by today's docs. On the other hand: today I guess those docs are rather read/ used by an AI than any human.
by riedel
We use it for seven years and it still runs fine when we update Pandoc - we usually always update things. I don’t remember anything about the docs, so not sure what changed.
by a1o
I might be worried if it wasn't pandoc. It's always been bulletproof for me.
by fwip
With a tagline of "a universal document converter" it is almost a guarantee to become a complicated program but how much of it is being used for any single conversion?
Two more examples:
Rclone is "bloated" but it needs to be in order to fulfill its purpose.
ZFS is "bloated" because it combines volumes and filesystems but breaking the Unix philosophy also enables a different kind of synergy and simplicity elsewhere.
by zenoprax