dcchambers/md2pdf.md

Last active November 16, 2025 16:25

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Generate a PDF from Markdown files with Pandoc

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Generate a PDF from a Markdown file with Pandoc

Have Homebrew installed and a markdown file you want to render to PDF.
Install Pandoc brew install pandoc
Install basictex brew cask install basictex - needed for the pdflatex tool.
Symlink the pdflatex to your /usr/local/bin so pandoc can easily find it. ln -s /Library/TeX/Root/bin/x86_64-darwin/pdflatex /usr/local/bin/pdflatex
Use Pandoc to generate a PDF from a Markdown file. pandoc input.md -o output.pdf
- By default the margins are pretty large. To optionally change the margins: pandoc input.md -o output.pdf -V geometry:margin=1in

I ran the above successfully with the following changes

Replace brew cask install basictex with brew install basictex --cask because brew cask is no longer a brew command
Instead of symlinking, you can open a new terminal window or refresh the path with eval "$(/usr/libexec/path_helper)" (this is what the installer suggests here)

Note on M1 mac, you will need to use this symlink the universal-darwin directory instead of x86_64-darwin directory

ln -s /Library/TeX/Root/bin/universal-darwin/pdflatex /usr/local/bin/pdflatex

instead of

ln -s /Library/TeX/Root/bin/x86_64-darwin/pdflatex /usr/local/bin/pdflatex