luochang212 Markdown to PDF Converter
Two cross-platform backends. Choose based on your situation:
Playwright (convert_playwright.py) |
reportlab (convert_reportlab.py) |
|
|---|---|---|
| Quality | Perfect — full browser rendering | Good — manual Flowable layout |
| CJK | Native — system fonts just work | Manual font registration per platform |
| Special chars | Native — box-drawing, arrows, emoji | Replaced with ASCII (see Fix 1 in script) |
| CSS theming | Full CSS | Hardcoded HexColor values |
| Images | Rendered | Placeholder text |
| Italic | Rendered | Intentionally skipped (conflicts with code tags) |
| Dependencies | ~150MB (Chromium) | ~10MB (pure Python) |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows, Linux | macOS, Windows, Linux |
Usage
# Playwright (best quality, needs Chromium)
python scripts/convert_playwright.py input.md [output.pdf]
# reportlab (pure Python, no Chromium needed)
python scripts/convert_reportlab.py input.md [output.pdf]
If no output path is given, replaces .md with .pdf.
Playwright Backend (convert_playwright.py)
The recommended default. Pipeline:
.md → mdformat → markdown → HTML + CSS → Playwright/Chromium → PDF
- Auto-detects platform — selects appropriate CJK fonts for macOS, Windows, or Linux
- CSS theme — edit the
CSSvariable to change colors, fonts, spacing - Syntax highlighting — Monokai dark theme via Pygments
codehiliteextension - LaTeX math — via
mdx_math+ KaTeX CDN (falls back to LaTeX source if offline) - Zero CJK issues — Chromium's text stack handles CJK, box-drawing, emoji, and mixed-language natively
Dependencies
pip install playwright markdown mdformat pygments python-markdown-math
playwright install chromium
Lightweight Backend (convert_reportlab.py)
Pure Python, no browser dependency. Pipeline:
.md → mdformat → sanitize_unicode() → markdown → BeautifulSoup → Flowables → reportlab → PDF
- Auto-detects platform — registers correct fonts for macOS or Windows
- Linux prints a warning with font path hints (you'll need to adjust
_FONTS) - Same Three Fixes as the original macOS version (Unicode→ASCII, CJK-in-code, skip italic)
Dependencies
pip install reportlab markdown beautifulsoup4 mdformat
Platform-Specific Details
When deeper platform guidance is needed, read the relevant reference:
- macOS:
references/macos.md— font paths, TTC subfont indices, Apple Silicon notes - Windows:
references/windows.md— font paths, WeasyPrint caveat, wkhtmltopdf alternative
Linux Notes
Playwright works on Linux if Chromium dependencies are installed (playwright install-deps chromium). The reportlab backend uses generic CJK font names by default — you may need to edit _FONTS in convert_reportlab.py to match your distribution's font paths.
Dependencies in Mainland China
Add Tencent Cloud mirror:
pip install <packages> --index-url https://mirrors.cloud.tencent.com/pypi/simple/