Quick way to convert Markdown into pretty PDFs using macOS.

README.md

Markdown to PDF

This is just a quick way to convert Markdown into pretty PDFs using macOS and Homebrew.

I created this as a more customizable solution to the homebrew md2pdf package, which has a horrible time with things like markdown tables.

Install Dependencies

You only need two packages installed to make this work:

brew install weasyprint
brew install pandoc

This allows you to run a command in terminal like this:

pandoc filename.md -o filename.pdf --from=gfm --standalone --css=path/to/style.css --pdf-engine=weasyprint

Make it Pretty

OK, so now that we can make PDFs easily, we can add some custom styles to make it pretty.

I have made the style.css CSS file you can use as a starter.

You can put it wherever you want, but I would recommend it go here:

$HOME/.config/md2pdf/style.css

Make it Useful

Now, you can certainly use the full bash command example I provided above and call it a day, but why not make this a bit more helpful?

1. Create a file /usr/local/bin/md2pdf
2. Copy and Paste the content from md2pdf.sh into this new file
3. Make that new file executable

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/md2pdf

Now you can do all sorts of fun stuff:

# Convert a single markdown file
md2pdf /path/to/file.md
md2pdf ./relative/file.md

# Convert all markdown files in folder
md2pdf /path/to/folder

# Convert all markdown files in folder and subfolders
md2pdf /path/to/folder --recursive

md2pdf.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Save as /usr/local/bin/md2pdf
# sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/md2pdf

set -euo pipefail

CSS_URL="$HOME/.config/md2pdf/style.css"
PDF_ENGINE="weasyprint"

usage() {
  echo "Usage:"
  echo "  md2pdf /path/to/file.md"
  echo "  md2pdf ./relative/file.md"
  echo "  md2pdf /path/to/folder"
  echo "  md2pdf /path/to/folder --recursive"
}

convert_file() {
  local input_file="$1"
  local output_file="${input_file%.*}.pdf"

  echo "Converting: $input_file"
  pandoc "$input_file" \
    -o "$output_file" \
    --from=gfm \
    --standalone \
    --css="$CSS_URL" \
    --pdf-engine="$PDF_ENGINE"
}

if [[ $# -lt 1 || $# -gt 2 ]]; then
  usage
  exit 1
fi

TARGET="$1"
RECURSIVE=false

if [[ $# -eq 2 ]]; then
  if [[ "$2" == "--recursive" ]]; then
    RECURSIVE=true
  else
    usage
    exit 1
  fi
fi

if ! command -v pandoc >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "Error: pandoc is not installed or not in PATH."
  exit 1
fi

if ! command -v "$PDF_ENGINE" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "Error: $PDF_ENGINE is not installed or not in PATH."
  exit 1
fi

if [[ -f "$TARGET" ]]; then
  if [[ "$TARGET" != *.md ]]; then
    echo "Error: file must be a .md file."
    exit 1
  fi

  convert_file "$TARGET"
  exit 0
fi

if [[ -d "$TARGET" ]]; then
  if [[ "$RECURSIVE" == true ]]; then
    find "$TARGET" -type f -name "*.md" -print0 |
      while IFS= read -r -d '' file; do
        convert_file "$file"
      done
  else
    find "$TARGET" -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.md" -print0 |
      while IFS= read -r -d '' file; do
        convert_file "$file"
      done
  fi

  exit 0
fi

echo "Error: target does not exist: $TARGET"
exit 1

style.css

/* Save to: ~/.config/md2pdf/style.css */

@page {
  size: Letter;
  margin: 0.35in;
}

* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

body {
  font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 12px;
  line-height: 1.2;
  padding: 30px;
  background-color: white;
  color: #333;
}

body > *:first-child,
blockquote > :first-child {
  margin-top: 0 !important;
}

body > *:last-child,
blockquote > :last-child {
  margin-bottom: 0 !important;
}

details {
  display: block;
}

summary {
  display: list-item;
}

details summary {
  cursor: pointer;
}

a {
  background-color: initial;
  color: #0366d6;
  text-decoration: none;
}

a:hover {
  text-decoration: underline;
  outline-width: 0;
}

a:active {
  outline-width: 0;
}

a:not([href]) {
  color: inherit;
  text-decoration: none;
}

strong {
  font-weight: 600;
}

hr {
  box-sizing: initial;
  height: 0.25em;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 24px 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #e1e4e8;
  border: 0;
}

hr::before,
hr::after {
  display: table;
  content: "";
}

hr::after {
  clear: both;
}

img {
  max-width: 100%;
  border-style: none;
  box-sizing: initial;
  background-color: #fff;
}

img[align="right"] {
  padding-left: 20px;
}

img[align="left"] {
  padding-right: 20px;
}

input {
  font: inherit;
  margin: 0;
  overflow: visible;
}

[type="checkbox"] {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  padding: 0;
}

:checked + .radio-label {
  position: relative;
  z-index: 1;
  border-color: #0366d6;
}

blockquote,
details,
dl,
ol,
p,
pre,
table,
ul {
  margin-top: 0;
  margin-bottom: 16px;
}

p {
  margin-top: 0;
}

blockquote {
  padding: 0 1em;
  margin: 0 0 16px;
  color: #6a737d;
  border-left: 0.25em solid #dfe2e5;
}

ol,
ul {
  padding-left: 2em;
  margin-top: 0;
}

ol ol,
ul ol {
  list-style-type: lower-roman;
}

ol ol ol,
ol ul ol,
ul ol ol,
ul ul ol {
  list-style-type: lower-alpha;
}

ol ol,
ol ul,
ul ol,
ul ul {
  margin-top: 0;
  margin-bottom: 0;
}

li > p {
  margin-top: 16px;
}

li + li {
  margin-top: 0.25em;
}

dl {
  padding: 0;
}

dd {
  margin-left: 0;
}

dl dt {
  padding: 0;
  margin-top: 16px;
  font-size: 1em;
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: 600;
}

dl dd {
  padding: 0 16px;
  margin-bottom: 16px;
}

h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
  margin-top: 24px;
  margin-bottom: 16px;
  font-weight: 600;
  line-height: 1.25;
}

h1,
h2 {
  padding-bottom: 0.3em;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #eaecef;
}

h1 {
  font-size: 1.6em;
}

h2 {
  font-size: 1.4em;
}

h3 {
  font-size: 1.2em;
}

h4 {
  font-size: 1em;
}

h5 {
  font-size: 0.875em;
}

h6 {
  font-size: 0.85em;
  color: #6a737d;
}

table {
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  overflow: auto;
  border-spacing: 0;
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

td,
th {
  padding: 6px 13px;
  border: 1px solid #dfe2e5;
}

table th {
  font-weight: 600;
}

table tr {
  background-color: #fff;
  border-top: 1px solid #c6cbd1;
}

table tr:nth-child(2n) {
  background-color: #f6f8fa;
}

code,
kbd,
pre {
  font-family: SFMono-Regular, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", Menlo, monospace;
}

code,
pre {
  font-size: 12px;
}

code {
  padding: 0.2em 0.4em;
  margin: 0;
  font-size: 85%;
  background-color: rgba(27, 31, 35, 0.05);
  border-radius: 3px;
}

kbd {
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 3px 5px;
  font: 11px SFMono-Regular, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", Menlo, monospace;
  line-height: 10px;
  color: #444d56;
  vertical-align: middle;
  background-color: #fafbfc;
  border: 1px solid #d1d5da;
  border-radius: 3px;
}

pre {
  padding: 16px;
  overflow: auto;
  word-wrap: normal;
  font-size: 85%;
  line-height: 1.45;
  background-color: #f6f8fa;
  border-radius: 3px;
}

pre > code,
pre code {
  display: inline;
  max-width: 100%;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  overflow: visible;
  font-size: 100%;
  line-height: inherit;
  word-break: normal;
  word-wrap: normal;
  white-space: pre;
  background: transparent;
  border: 0;
}

table {
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  overflow: auto;
  border-spacing: 0;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  font-size: 0.75em;
  line-height: 1.1em;
}

table th,
table td {
  padding: 6px 13px;
  border: 1px solid #dfe2e5;
  vertical-align: top;
}

table th {
  font-weight: 600;
  white-space: nowrap;
  background-color: #f6f8fa;
}

table td {
  white-space: normal;
}

table tr {
  background-color: #fff;
  border-top: 1px solid #c6cbd1;
}

table tr:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: #f6f8fa;
}