Markdown to Polished PDF

Many developers, writers and consultants write in Markdown, then struggle when someone asks for a PDF. Exporting from an editor gives plain, inconsistent results, and going through a word processor means reformatting everything. Build a tool that takes Markdown in, applies a carefully designed template, and gives back a PDF that looks professional: good typography, page numbers, a cover page and a table of contents.

It’s a focused project that teaches document rendering and design for print, and the templates themselves can become something you sell.

Markdown is great for writing and awkward for sending to people who expect a document. Proposals, client reports, technical documentation and résumés often start in Markdown and end up reformatted by hand in a word processor, which takes time and has to be redone every time the text changes.

Tools that convert Markdown to PDF exist, but many need command-line setup, produce default styling that looks like a printed web page, or make the design hard to change for anyone who isn’t a typesetter.

• Developers and technical writers who keep documentation in Markdown and sometimes need a PDF.
• Freelancers and consultants who write proposals and reports and want them to look consistent.
• Students and researchers who take notes in Markdown and need printable versions.

A web page with a Markdown editor on one side and a live preview on the other, styled by the chosen template. A “Download PDF” button renders the document on the server with a headless browser, which supports the CSS features made for print: page sizes, margins, running headers and footers, page numbers and page breaks.

Start with three templates done well rather than ten done quickly: a proposal, a report and a résumé. Each is a stylesheet with print rules, which keeps adding templates simple.