Last weekend I exported my Jupyter Notebook records into a PDF format file. Surprisingly, the PDF file looks so good that I begin to think about using Jupyter Notebook or Markdown instead of LaTex to write technical papers because LaTex is an extremely powerful but inconvenient tool for writing. Then I created a file named ‘hello.md’:

# Head1
## First
There is a fox on the bank.
## Second
Hello

Then using a command line to convert the Markdown file to PDF (if you meet problems like ‘Can’t find *.sty’, just use ‘sudo tlmgr install xxx’):

pandoc -s -f markdown -t latex -o hello.pdf hello.md

The PDF file looks like:


pandoc

It does works, but the appearance looks too rigid. Then I found the ‘pandoc-latex-template‘. By downloading and installing the ‘eisvogel.tex’, I can generate PDF by:

pandoc --template Downloads/eisvogel.tex -s -f markdown -t latex -o hello.pdf hello.md

And the new style looks as below:


pandoc

Actually, we can use this template more heavily. Change ‘hello.md’ to:

---
title: "How to write technical papers"
author: [Robin Dong]
date: "2019-04-19"
keywords: [Markdown, pandoc]
lang: "en"
...
# How to write technical papers
## Install pandoc
Visit pandoc website
## Download template
Visit [pandoc-latex-template](github https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Wandmalfarbe/pandoc-latex-template/master/examples/basic-example/basic-example.md)
## Equation
\begin{equation}
    E = m c^2
\end{equation}
## Source code
```python
    import torch
    a = torch.zeros([2, 3])
    print(a) # This is not java
```

Add a file ‘metadata.yaml’ for font:

---
fontsize: 13pt
---

Then the command line:

pandoc --template Downloads/eisvogel.tex -s -f markdown -t latex -o hello.pdf hello.md metadata.yaml --highlight-style tango

The final document looks much more formal:


pandoc

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