any2pdf — Markdown to Professional PDF

This skill converts any Markdown file into a publication-quality PDF using Python's reportlab library. It was developed through extensive iteration on real Chinese technical reports and solves several hard problems that naive MD→PDF converters get wrong.

When to Use

• User wants to convert .md → .pdf
• User has a markdown report/document and wants professional typesetting
• Document contains CJK characters (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) mixed with Latin text
• Document has fenced code blocks, markdown tables, or nested lists
• Document has local/remote images, Obsidian callouts, emoji, or math formulas
• User wants a cover page, table of contents, or watermark in their PDF

Quick Start

python md2pdf/scripts/md2pdf.py \
  --input report.md \
  --output report.pdf \
  --title "My Report" \
  --author "Author Name" \
  --theme warm-academic

All parameters except --input are optional — sensible defaults are applied.

Pre-Conversion Options (MANDATORY)

IMPORTANT: You MUST use the AskUserQuestion tool to ask these questions BEFORE running the conversion. Do NOT list options as plain text — use the tool so the user gets a proper interactive prompt. Ask all options in a SINGLE AskUserQuestion call.

Use AskUserQuestion with the following template. The tone should be friendly and concise — like a design assistant, not a config form:

开始转 PDF！先帮你确认几个选项 👇

━━━ 📐 设计风格 ━━━
 a) 暖学术    — 陶土色调，温润典雅，适合人文/社科报告
 b) 经典论文  — 棕色调，灵感源自 LaTeX classicthesis，适合学术论文
 c) Tufte     — 极简留白，深红点缀，适合数据叙事/技术写作
 d) 期刊蓝    — 藏蓝严谨，灵感源自 IEEE，适合正式发表风格
 e) 精装书    — 咖啡色调，书卷气，适合长篇专著/技术书
 f) 中国红    — 朱红配暖纸，适合中文正式报告/白皮书
 g) 水墨      — 纯灰黑，素雅克制，适合文学/设计类内容
 h) GitHub    — 蓝白极简，程序员熟悉的风格
 i) Nord 冰霜 — 蓝灰北欧风，清爽现代
 j) 海洋      — 青绿色调，清新自然

━━━ 🖼 扉页图片（封面之后的全页插图） ━━━
 1) 跳过
 2) 我提供本地图片路径
 3) AI 根据内容自动生成一张

━━━ 💧 水印 ━━━
 1) 不加
 2) 自定义文字（如 "DRAFT"、"内部资料"）

━━━ 📇 封底物料（名片/二维码/品牌） ━━━
 1) 跳过
 2) 我提供图片
 3) 纯文字信息

示例回复："a, 扉页跳过, 水印:仅供学习参考, 封底图片:/path/qr.png"
直接说人话就行，不用记编号 😄

Mapping User Choices to CLI Args

Theme Name Mapping

Handling AI-Generated Frontispiece

If user chose AI generation: read the document title + first paragraphs, use an image generation tool to create a themed illustration matching the chosen design style, show for approval, then pass via --frontispiece /path/to/image.png

Architecture

Markdown → Preprocess (split merged headings) → Parse (code-fence-aware) → Story (reportlab flowables) → PDF build

Key components:

1. Font system: Palatino (Latin body), Songti SC (CJK body), Menlo (code) on macOS; auto-fallback on Linux
2. CJK wrapper: _font_wrap() wraps CJK character runs in <font> tags for automatic font switching
3. Mixed text renderer: _draw_mixed() handles CJK/Latin mixed text on canvas (cover, headers, footers)
4. Code block handler: esc_code() preserves indentation and line breaks in reportlab Paragraphs
5. Smart table widths: Proportional column widths based on content length, with 18mm minimum
6. Bookmark system: ChapterMark flowable creates PDF sidebar bookmarks + named anchors
7. Heading preprocessor: _preprocess_md() splits merged headings like # Part## Chapter into separate lines
8. Image handler: local, relative, file://, and remote markdown images are scaled into the body frame with fallback text on errors
9. Callout renderer: Obsidian-style > [!NOTE] blocks render as themed boxed callouts
10. Formula renderer: display formulas use optional matplotlib mathtext images, with styled text fallback
11. Emoji fallback: emoji are rendered as cached Twemoji PNGs when available, or with a local emoji font fallback

Hard-Won Lessons

CJK Characters Rendering as □

reportlab's Paragraph only uses the font in ParagraphStyle. If fontName="Mono" but text contains Chinese, they render as □. Fix: Always apply _font_wrap() to ALL text that might contain CJK, including code blocks.

Code Blocks Losing Line Breaks

reportlab treats \n as whitespace. Fix: esc_code() converts \n → <br/> and all spaces →  , preserving indentation and mid-line alignment before _font_wrap().

CJK/Latin Word Wrapping

Default reportlab breaks lines only at spaces, causing ugly splits like "Claude\nCode". Fix: Set wordWrap='CJK' on body/bullet styles to allow breaks at CJK character boundaries.

Canvas Text with CJK (Cover/Footer)

drawString() / drawCentredString() with a Latin font can't render 年/月/日 etc. Fix: Use _draw_mixed() for ALL user-content canvas text (dates, stats, disclaimers).

Configuration Reference

Most options can also be set in top-of-file YAML-style frontmatter. Explicit CLI arguments take precedence over frontmatter values.

Themes

Available: warm-academic, nord-frost, github-light, solarized-light, paper-classic, ocean-breeze.

Each theme defines: page background, ink color, accent color, faded text, border, code background, watermark tint.

Dependencies

pip install reportlab --break-system-packages
# Optional formula rendering:
pip install matplotlib --break-system-packages

Recommended Ubuntu/Debian fonts:

sudo apt install fonts-dejavu-core fonts-liberation fonts-freefont-ttf fonts-noto fonts-noto-cjk fonts-noto-color-emoji