Limberer: Flexible document generation based on WeasyPrint, mustache templates, and Pandoc.
limberer
is a utility for assembling markdown into documents.
Usage
$ limberer create projname
$ cd projname
$ limberer build report.toml
$ open projname.pdf
Features
- Markdown-based
- Consistent builds
- Automatic table of contents generation
- Mustache template hardening (disable
__
access and lambda evaluation) - WeasyPrint hardening (restricts file access)
- Source code snippet syntax highlighting
- 2-column layouts
- Footnote support
- Image/figure support
- Markdown within HTML tables
- Flexible
Installation
Prerequisites
$ sudo apt-get install pandoc
Note: If your distro has an older version of pandoc (e.g. 2.9.x), get it from https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/.
$ wget https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/download/<ver>/pandoc-<...>.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ./pandoc-*.deb
Install
$ pip3 install --user limberer
From Source
$ git clone https://github.com/ChaosData/limberer && cd limberer
$ python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip setuptools
$ python3 -m pip install --user .
Packaging
$ python3 -m pip install --user wheel build
$ python3 -m build --sdist --wheel .
$ python3 -m pip install --user dist/limberer-*.whl
Cleaning
$ rm -rf ./build ./dist ./src/limberer.egg-info ./src/limberer/__pycache__
Guide
limberer
is primarily about structuring documents through the use of
"sections," which are ordered in a document's <project>.toml
file.
These sections are based on HTML Mustache templates. For the most part, the
section
template will be used to write document content. For such
type = "section"
sections, the content will be sourced from a (currently)
Markdown file based on the section name
value (sections/<name>.md
). By
default, sections will be rendered against the template/section.html
template, but the template used can be changed via an alt = "othertemplate"
section list setting.
Project TOML Example
title = "Example Document"
subheading = "..."
authors = [
{ name = "Example Person", email = "example@example.com" },
...
]
sections = [
{ type = "cover" },
{ type = "toc" },
{ name = "example", type = "section" },
{ name = "example2", type = "section", sectionoption = "value" },
...
]
Additional or overriding settings or Mustache template variables can be
configured by passing additional TOML file paths into the limberer build
command:
$ limberer build report.toml stats.toml
Section Templates
Out of the box, limberer
comes with some initial section templates:
cover
: A title page section.toc
: A table of contents section.section
: The underlying template for custom sections.
Additionally, limberer
supports the following template-like pseudo-sections:
appendix_start
: Subsequent sections will be treated as appendices.appendix_end
: Disables the above setting; subsequent sections are not
treated as appendices. The appendix counter will not be cleared.
Custom Sections
Custom sections ("sections") are a mix of Markdown (and, in some cases, HTML),
with support for Mustache expressions (using the TOML configuration), where
most document content is written. A section can begin with a block of Markdown
metadata:
---
toc_header_level: 2
columns: true
title: Example3
classes: foo bar baz
---
The metadata options are merged with the section entry options. Currently
supported options are the following:
toc_header_level
: Header level limit to use for table of contents entry
generation.columns
: Whether or not to use the 2-column format for the section.title
: Section title for 2-column format.classes
: List of HTML class names to apply to the section (<article>
)end_footnotes
: Footnotes will be placed at the end of the section instead
of at/near the site of placement.
Additionally, the following options may be passed in a section entry within the
project TOML:
conf = "path/to/config.toml"
: This specifies a path to a TOML file that
is loaded for the context of the section. This is useful for loading
generated data into a section containing Mustache templating, or for reusing
a section that is itself a "config template" combining Mustache and Markdown.cont = true
: This specifies that the section's Markdown should be directly
concatenated instead of being handled as a full section. This is useful for
combining "config templates" together, or, more simply, just managing large
single sections that are not intended to be divided across multiple
<article>
elements within the underlying HTML.
Tables
Tables can be written using the pipe-delimited GitHub-flavored Markdown
convention, or with HTML tables.
| First Header | Second Header |
| ------------- | ------------- |
| Content Cell | Content Cell |
| Content Cell | Content Cell |
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="width: 20%">a</th>
<th style="width: 40%">b</th>
<th>c</th>
<th>d</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>**Bold**</td><td>_italic_</td>
<td>
```
code block
```
</td>
<td>
* list
* of
* things
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Images
A simple image can be embedded with custom CSS to place/style it:
![](./images/test1.jpg){style="width: 30%; margin: auto; display: block;"}
However, for the most part, figures are a better way to embed images:
![An example image](./images/test1.jpg){style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid red;"}
The figures themselves can be styled with the figstyle
and figclass
options:
![Another example image](./images/test1.jpg){style="width: 1.5in" figstyle="color: red; width: 35%;" figclass="aaa bbb"}
Additionally, there is support for a side-by-side image-and-text in the default
layout/theme using a little HTML:
<div class="two-col-fig">
![This is on the left](./images/test1.jpg)
<div style="width: 40%">
## A Header
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
</div>
</div>
The order of these can also be swapped:
<div class="two-col-fig">
<div style="width: 40%">
## A Header
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
</div>
![This is on the right](./images/test1.jpg){style="width: 1.5in"}
</div>
Cross-References
Xrefs can be made through links to an element's id
. By default, headings have
autogenerated IDs based on the heading text (e.g. # Examplely Example
will
have an id
of {section}-examplely-example
. However, this can be overridden
as follows:
## AAA{#aaah2}
Note: The {section}-
prefix will be applied to all id
values other
than of the sections themselves.
To xref, any link to #<id>
will suffice, but to style xrefs, a few options
are available in the default style/layout.
-
.xref
: A simple unstyled segment of text.
* [xref to Example2.AAA](#example2-aaah2){.xref}
* <a class="xref" href="#example2-aaah2">xref to Example2.AAA</a>
-
.xrefn
: This will autopopulate the target's text content.
Note: Be careful not to use this on elements containing large
quantities of text via child nodes.
* <a class="xrefn" href="#example2-aaah2"></a>
* [](#example2-aaah2){.xrefn}
-
.xrefpg
: This will add a " on page XX".
* <a class="xrefn xrefpg" href="#example2-aaah2"></a>
* [](#example2-aaah2){.xrefn .xrefpg}
Code Blocks
```js { lines="true" start="99" highlight="1,5" filename="HelloWorld.js" }
let j = await fetch("https://wat.wat", {
"headers": {
"x-test": "foo"
}
}).then((res)=>res.json());
```
<p class="caption">Example Snippet of Code</p>
```js
let j = await fetch("https://wat.wat", {
"headers": {
"x-test": "foo"
}
}).then((res)=>res.json());
```
<figure class="caption"><figcaption>Example Snippet of Code with a figure prefix</figcaption></figure>
The following settings can be configured in the project TOML:
highlight
(defaults to "monokai"
)highlight_plaintext
(defaults to "solarized-dark"
)highlight_font
(defaults to "'DejaVu Sans Mono', monospace"
)highlight_style
(defaults to "border-radius: 2px; overflow-x: auto;"
)highlight_padding
(defaults to "padding: 0.5rem 1rem 0.5rem 1rem;"
)highlight_padding_lines
(defaults to `"padding: 0.25rem 0.5rem 0.25rem 0.5rem;")
Breaks
The following can be added to force a break.
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<div class="columnbreak"></div>
Footnotes should mostly work as expected, but can fit poorly and may be better
shifted to another page.
Hello world.[^test]
[^test]: <https://github.com/ChaosData/limberer>
Theming/Styling
By default, limberer
comes with some core styling and section templates.
It is expected that users will customize their document templates beyond what
is provided. As such, the limberer create
command supports a -t <path>
option to generate a new project from a given template project directory.
Generally speaking, the styling you want to use is up to you. However, for
convenience, the CSS is organized as core
, style
, and custom
. The intent
is for the assets/core.css
to cover the main layout and functioning of the
document, the assets/style.css
to cover group theming for consistency, and
custom/custom.css
to be for any per-document/project styling.
Todo List
- Support for custom Mustache-generated CSS
- Better footnotes
- Draft builds
- Partial builds of individual sections
- Support for non-Markdown sections
FAQ
Why?
For a litany of reasons, but if I had to go out on a limb and pick one, it
would be that LaTeX is a great typesetter, but a terrible build system.
What!?
Greetz to asch, tanner, agrant, jblatz, and dthiel. <3