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1+This document provides a quick overview over the various ways to
2+customize pandoc's output. Follow the links to learn how to use each
3+approach.
4+
5+[Templates](/MANUAL.html#templates)
6+
7+: Pandoc comes with a template for (almost) every output format. A
8+ template is a plain text file, that contains for example the line
9+ `$body$`. That variable is replaced by the document's body text on
10+ output.
11+
12+ There are many other variables, like `title`, `header-includes`,
13+ etc. that are either set automatically, or that you can set using
14+ [YAML metadata blocks](/MANUAL.html#extension-yaml_metadata_block),
15+ [`--metadata`](/MANUAL.html#option--metadata) (which properly escape
16+ things), or `--variable` (which does no escaping). You can also
17+ generate your own template (e.g. `pandoc -D html > myletter.html`)
18+ and customize that file, for example by introducing new variables.
19+
20+[reference.docx/pptx/odt](/MANUAL.html#option--reference-doc)
21+
22+: To output a `docx`, `pptx` or `odt` document, which is a ZIP of
23+ several files, things are a bit more complicated. Instead of a
24+ single template file, you need to provide a customized
25+ `reference.docx/pptx/odt`.
26+
27+[Lua filters](lua-filters.html) and [filters](filters.html)
28+
29+: Templates are very powerful, but they are only a sort of scaffold to
30+ place your document's body text in. You cannot directly change the
31+ body text using the template (beyond e.g. adding CSS for HTML
32+ output, or `\renewcommand` for LaTeX output).
33+
34+ If you need to affect the output of the actual body text, you
35+ probably need a pandoc filter. A filter is a small program, that
36+ transforms the document, between the parsing and the writing phase,
37+ while it is still in pandoc's native format -- an abstract syntax
38+ tree (AST), not unlike the HTML DOM. As can be seen in the [AST
39+ definition](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-types/docs/Text-Pandoc-Definition.html)
40+ `Pandoc Meta [Block]`, a pandoc document is a chunk of metadata and
41+ a list of `Block`s.
42+
43+ - There's a [list of third party filters on the
44+ wiki](https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/wiki/Pandoc-Filters).
45+ - Unless you have a good reason not to, it's best to write your
46+ own filter in the Lua scripting language. Since pandoc ships
47+ with a Lua interpreter, Lua filters are very portable and
48+ efficient. See [Lua filters](lua-filters.html).
49+ - For a gentle introduction into filters and writing them in any
50+ programming language, see [filters](filters.html).
51+
52+Furthecustomizations
53+
54+: - [Custom Styles in Docx](/MANUAL.html#custom-styles-in-docx)
55+ - If you're converting from Markdown, see
56+ - [Generic raw attributes](/MANUAL.html#generic-raw-attribute):
57+ to include raw snippets
58+ - [Divs and Spans](/MANUAL.html#divs-and-spans): generic blocks
59+ that can be transformed with filters
60+ - [Custom syntax highlighting](/MANUAL.html#syntax-highlighting),
61+ provided by the [skylighting
62+ library](https://github.com/jgm/skylighting)
63+ - [Custom writers](/MANUAL.html#custom-writers)
64+ - [Pandoc Extras wiki page](https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/wiki/Pandoc-Extras)