Make word, pdf and html documents with markdown and pandoc

Markdown is a simple text markup language.
Pandoc is a document converter. Pandoc demo and sample command.

Pandoc commands

Convert a markdown file to PDF :

pandoc -o README.pdf README.md

The pandoc man page says: "If  the input or output format is not specified explicitly, pandoc will attempt to guess it from the extensions of the input and output filenames." That's what happens above. However "The input format can be specified using the -r/--read or -f/--from options, the output format using the -w/--write or -t/--to options."

Makefile 

This phsychologist blogs about using a makefile to create beamer presentations.
This researchers providers a make file for pandoc templates.

With this simple make file, I can create Microsoft Word, HTML and PDF documents from the same markdown file:

all: docx pdf html

docx: file.md
        pandoc -o file.docx file.md

pdf: file.md
        pandoc -o file.pdf file.md

html: deliverable.md
        pandoc -o file.html file.md

clean:
        rm -f *.html *.pdf *.docx

To create all documents type

make

To create only a docx type

make docx

To delete all created document type

make clean

Improved makefile with variable

file.pdf : file.md
    pandoc -o file.pdf file.md

%.pdf: %.md
    pandoc -o $@ $<

Guide makefiles:

"Here, we have used the percent (%) character to denote that part of the target and dependency that matches whatever the pattern is used for, and the $< is a special variable (imaging it like $(<)) that means "whatever the depencies are". Another useful variable is $@, which means "the target"."

## Makefile to generate documents based on markdown files
## Inspired by this makefile
## https://github.com/kjhealy/pandoc-templates/blob/master/examples/Makefile
##
## I should use vraibles for filenames
## Command line to converts:

## How to make this using variables?
## No space allowed in file names there could be a replacement but I didn't try
## http://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/gnu-make-meets-file-names-spaces-them

## Markdown extension (e.g. md, markdown, mdown).
MEXT = md
## All markdown files in the working directory
SRC = $(wildcard *.$(MEXT))


DOCX=$(SRC:.md=.docx)
PDFS=$(SRC:.md=.pdf)
HTML=$(SRC:.md=.html)


all: $(PDFS)  $(DOCX)
pdf:    clean $(PDFS)
docx:   clean $(DOCX)
#html:   clean $(HTML)


#scrap : scrap.md
#    pandoc -o scrap.pdf scrap.md


# Separator for these lines need to start with a hard tab, not 4 spaces!
%.pdf: %.md
    pandoc -o $@ $<

%.docx: %.md
    pandoc -o $@ $<

clean:
    rm -f *.html *.pdf *.docx