Can I set command line arguments using the YAML metadata

Question

Pandoc supports a YAML metadata block in markdown documents. This can set the title and author, etc. It can also manipulate the appearance of the PDF output by changing the

Answer 1

YAML metadata are not passed to pandoc as arguments, but as variables. When you call pandoc on your MWE, it does not produce this :

pandoc -o guide.pdf articheck_guide.md --toc --number-sections

as we think it would. rather, it calls :

pandoc -o guide.pdf articheck_guide.md -V toc:yes -V number-sections:yes

Why, then, does you MWE produces a toc? Because the default latex template makes use of a toc variable :

~$ pandoc -D latex | grep toc

$if(toc)$
\setcounter{tocdepth}{$toc-depth$}

So setting toc to any value should produce a table of contents, at least in latex output. In this template, there is no number-sections variables, so this one doesn't work. However, there is a numbersections variable :

~$ pandoc -D latex | grep number

$if(numbersections)$

Setting numbersections to any value will produce numbering in a latex output with the default template

---
title: My Title
toc: yes
numbersections: yes
---

The trouble with this solution is that it only works with some output format. I thought I had read somewhere on the pandoc mailing-list that we soon would be able to use metadata in YAML blocks as intended (ie. as arguments rather than variables), but I can't find it anymore, so maybe it won't happen very soon.