Who knew writing could be so nerdy?

version 0.8.1

Copyright 2013-2014 Sebastiaan Mathôt

• module academicmarkdown
  • About
  • Examples
  • Download
  • Basic usage
  • Dependencies
  • Zotero references
    • Pandoc citation style
    • Zotero API key and library ID
    • Citation identifiers
    • Sorting citations
    • Clearing cache
  • Academic Markdown extensions
    • code: code listings
    • constant: define constants
    • exec: external commands
    • figure: figures
    • include: include other Markdown files
    • python: python code
    • table: table
    • toc: table of contents
    • wc: word count
    • Magic variables
  • License
  • module academicmarkdown.build
    • function academicmarkdown.build.DOC(src, target)
    • function academicmarkdown.build.DOCX(src, target)
    • function academicmarkdown.build.HTML(src, target=None, standalone=True)
    • function academicmarkdown.build.MD(src, target=None)
    • function academicmarkdown.build.ODT(src, target)
    • function academicmarkdown.build.PDF(src, target, args=u'', lineNumbers=False)
    • function academicmarkdown.build.setStyle(style)
  • module academicmarkdown.constants

Academic Markdown is a Python module for generating .md, .html, .pdf, .docx, and .odt files from Markdown source. Pandoc is used for most of the heavy lifting, so refer to the Pandoc website for detailed information about writing in Pandoc Markdown. However, Academic Markdown offers some additional functionality that is useful for writing scientific documents, such as integration with Zotero references, and a number of useful Academic Markdown extensions.

At present, the main target for Academic Markdown is the OpenSesame documentation site, http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/, although it may in time grow into a more comprehensive and user-friendly tool.

A basic example can be found in the example sub folder, included with the source.

The following manuscripts have been written in Academic Markdown:

• Mathôt S, Dalmaijer ES, Grainger J, Van der Stigchel S. (2014) The pupillary light response reflects exogenous attention and inhibition of return. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e422v1 http://dx.doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.422v1 (source)
• Mathôt S, van der Linden L, Grainger J, Vitu F. (2014) The pupillary light response reflects eye-movement preparation. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e238v2 http://dx.doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.238v2 (source)

You can download the latest release of Academic Markdown here:

• https://github.com/smathot/academicmarkdown/releases

Ubuntu users can install Academic Markdown from the Cogsci.nl PPA:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:smathot/cogscinl
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install python-academicmarkdown

Academic Markdown assumes that input files are encoded with utf-8 encoding.

from academicmarkdown import build
build.HTML(u'input.md', u'output.html')
build.HTML(u'input.md', u'output.html', standalone=False)
build.PDF(u'input.md', u'output.pdf')
build.DOCX(u'input.md', u'output.docx')
build.ODT(u'input.md', u'output.odt')

A number of options can be specified by setting attributes of the build module, like so

build.spacing = 30, 0

The full list of options is available in academicmarkdown/constants.py, or see academicmarkdown.constants.

Academic Markdown has been tested exclusively on Ubuntu Linux. The following dependencies are required:

• pandoc is used for most of the heavy lifting. At the time of writing, the Ubuntu repositories do not contain a sufficiently recent version of Pandoc. Therefore, if you encounter trouble, try installing the latest version of Pandoc manually.
• pyzotero is necessary for extracting Zotero references.
• wkhtmltopdf is necessary for converting to .pdf. For best results, use the latest statically linked release, instead of the version from the Ubuntu repositories.

Since the basic Markdown conversion is performed by Pandoc, citations should be formatted as described on the Pandoc site:

• http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#citations

You can automatically extract references from your Zotero library by setting the zoteroApiKey and zoteroLibraryId properties. Your references are not extracted from your local Zotero database, but through the web API of http://www.zotero.org. This means that you need to have a Zotero account and synchronize your local database with your account, in order to use this feature. You can find your your API key and library ID online on your Zotero profile page.

from academicmarkdown import build
build.zoteroApiKey = u'myapikey'
build.zoteroLibraryId = u'mylibraryid'
build.PDF(u'input.md', u'output.pdf')

Citations are split into separate terms using camelcase or undescore logic. An example of an underscore-style citation is @bárány_halldén_1948. And example of a camelcase-style citation is @Land1999WhyAnimals. Each citation is interpreted as a series of author names, followed by the year of publication, optionally followed by terms that match either the publication title, or the article title. So the following reference ...

Land, M., Mennie, N., & Rusted, J. (1999). The roles of vision and eye movements in the control of activities of daily living. Perception, 28(11), 1311–1328.

... matches any of the following terms:

• @Land1999
• @Land1999Roles
• @LandMennie1999
• @LandRusted1999Percept
• @land_rusted_1999_percept
• etc.

If a name contains spaces, you can indicate this using a + character. So the following reference ...

Van Zoest, W., & Donk, M. (2005). The effects of salience on saccadic target selection. Visual Cognition, 12(2), 353–375.

... matches any of the following terms:

• @Van+zoestDonk2005
• @van+zoest_donk_2005

Note that you must consistently use the same citation to refer to a single reference in one document. If a citation matched multiple references from your Zotero database, one citation will be chosen at random.

Pandoc does not allow you to sort your references, which can be annoying. To get around this, Academic Markdown allows you to explicitly sort your citations by linking chains of citations with a + character:

    [@Zzz2014]+[@Aaa2014]

Previous references will be cached automatically. To refresh, remove the file .zoteromarkdown.cache or run your Python script with the command-line argument: --clear-cache.

Academic Markdown provides certain extensions to regular Markdown, in the form of YAML blocks embedded in %-- --% tags. You can which, and the order in which, extensions are called by settings the extensions list:

from academicmarkdown import build
# First call the include extension, second call the figure extension
build.extensions = [u'include', u'figure']

The code blocks embeds a code listing in the text, quite to similar to the figure block.

    %--
    code:
     id: CodeA
     source: my_script.py
     syntax: python
     caption: "A simple Python script"
    --%

The caption and syntax attributes are optional.

The constant block allows you to define constants. For example, if you define MyConstant1 (as below), all occurrences of "%MyConstant1" in the text will be replcated by "You can refer to this as %MyConstant1".

    %--
    constant:
            MyConstant1:    "You can refer to this as %MyConstant1"
            MyConstant2:    "You can refer to this as %MyConstant2"
    --%

The exec block inserts the return value of an external command in the text. For example, the following block embeds something like 'Generated on 10/18/2013':

    %-- exec: "date +'Generated on %x'" --%

The figure block embeds a Figure in the text. Figures are numbered automatically. The ID can be used to refer to the Figure in the text, using a % character. So the following figure would be referred to as %FigFA.

    %--
    figure:
     id: FigFA
     source: foveal_acuity.svg
     caption: "Visual acuity drops of rapidly with distance from the fovea."
     width: 100
    --%

The caption and width attributes are optional.

The include block includes an other Markdown file. For example:

    %-- include: example/intro.md --%

The python block embeds the output (i.e. whatever is printed to stdout) of a Python script into your document. For example, the following block embeds the docstring of the PythonParser class (i.e. what you're reading now):

    %--
    python: |
     import inspect
     from academicmarkdown import PythonParser
     print inspect.getdoc(PythonParser)
    --%

Note that the | symbol is YAML syntax, and allows you to have a multiline string.

The table block reads a table from a .csv file and embed it into the document. The source file needs to be a utf-8 encoded file that is comma separated and double quoted.

    %--
    table:
     id: MyTable
     source: my_table.csv
     caption: "My table caption."
     ndigits: 4
    --%

The toc block automatically generates a table of contents from the headings, assuming that headings are indicated using the # style and not the underlining style. You can indicate headings to be excluded from the table of contents as well.

    %--
    toc:
     mindepth: 1
     maxdepth: 2
     exclude: [Contents, Contact]
    --%

All attributes are optional.

The wc block insert the word count for a particular document. This is convenient if you have split the text across multiple documents, and want to have a separate word count for each document.

    %-- wc: method-section.md --%

Magic variables are automatically replaced by certain values, and are indicated like this: %varname%. The following magic variables are available:

• %wc%: Word count
• %cc%: Character count
• %rc%: Reference count

Academic Markdown is available under the GNU General Public License 3. For more information, see the included file COPYING.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
This file is part of zoteromarkdown.

zoteromarkdown is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

zoteromarkdown is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with zoteromarkdown.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

---
desc: |
	Contains the settings, which are imported into `academicmarkdown.build`. You
	can change these settings in the `build` module, as shown below.

	__Module source:__

	%--
	code:
		id: LstConstants
		syntax: python
		source: academicmarkdown/constants.py
	--%

example: |
	from academicmarkdown import build
	build.pdfHeader = u'A header for my PDF'
---
"""

import os, sys

# A list of folders that are searched for figures, scripts, etc.
path = [os.getcwd().decode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())]

# Parameters for Zotero integration
zoteroApiKey = None
zoteroLibraryId = None
zoteroHeaderText = u'References'
zoteroHeaderLevel = 1

# Options for the appearance of figures, blocks, and tables
figureTemplate = u'html5'
figureStyle = u'inline'
codeTemplate = u'pandoc'
codeStyle = u'inline'
tableTemplate = u'html5'
tableStyle = u'inline'

# Indicates whether headers should be turned into clickable anchors by TOCParser
TOCAnchorHeaders = False
# Indicates whether references to header ids should be automatically appended
# to the main text.
TOCAppendHeaderRefs = True

# Paths to files that determine the document's appearance. For more information,
# see the Pandoc documentation.
css = None # CSS stylesheet
csl = None # CSL citation style
html5Ref = None # HTML5 template
odtRef = None # ODT reference document
docxRef = None # DOCX reference document

# A list of filters from academicmarkdown.HTMLFilter that should be performed
# after an HTML document has been genertated.
htmlFilters = [u'DOI', u'citationGlue']

# A list of filters from academicmarkdown.MDFilter that should be performed
# on the Markdown source, prior to any processing.
preMarkdownFilters = []
# A list of filters from academicmarkdown.MDFilter that should be performed
# on the Markdown source, after all other processing has been performed
postMarkdownFilters = [u'autoItalics', u'pageBreak', u'magicVars', u'highlight']

# A list of extensions that are enabled.
extensions = [u'include', u'exec', u'python', u'toc', u'code', u'video', \
	u'table', u'figure', u'constant', u'wc']

# The page margins
pdfMargins = 30, 20, 30, 20

# The spacing between the content and the header and footer
pdfSpacing = 10, 10

# Header and footer text
pdfHeader = u'%section%'
pdfFooter = u'%page% of %topage%'

from academicmarkdown import build
build.pdfHeader = u'A header for my PDF'