Pandoc Syntax Highlighting Styles

This directory contains CSS files for Pandoc's built-in syntax highlighting engine (skylighting).

These styles are used by RexxPub to highlight non-Rexx fenced code blocks (Python, Java, SQL, etc.). Rexx code blocks are highlighted by the Rexx Highlighter and use a separate set of styles (the rexx-*.css files in the parent directory).

Available styles

pandoc-pygments.css --- The default Pandoc style, based on the Pygments colour scheme. Light background, muted colours, good general-purpose readability.
pandoc-kate.css --- Based on the Kate editor defaults. Light background, slightly more saturated than Pygments.
pandoc-tango.css --- Based on the Tango Desktop Project palette. Light background, warm earth tones.
pandoc-espresso.css --- Dark background (#2b2b2b), warm colours. Pairs well with dark Rexx highlighting styles.
pandoc-zenburn.css --- Dark background (#3f3f3f), low-contrast palette designed to reduce eye strain. Pairs well with dark Rexx highlighting styles.
pandoc-monochrome.css --- No colours; uses only bold, italic, and underline to distinguish token types. Suitable for black-and-white printing.
pandoc-breezeDark.css --- Dark background (#232629), based on the KDE Breeze Dark theme. Vivid colours on a very dark background.
pandoc-haddock.css --- Based on the Haddock documentation tool. Light background, restrained palette.

Usage

The style is selected via the standard Pandoc highlight-style metadata field in the YAML front matter (at the top level, not under rexxpub:):

---
highlight-style: zenburn
rexxpub:
  style: dark
---

The default is pygments. The md2pdf and md2epub pipelines also accept a --pandoc-highlighting-style command-line option.

See the YAML front matter documentation for details.

Regenerating from Pandoc

These files were generated from Pandoc's built-in highlight themes. To regenerate them (for example, after a Pandoc upgrade), run:

for style in pygments kate tango espresso zenburn monochrome breezeDark haddock; do
  echo '```python'  > /tmp/hl.md
  echo 'x = 1'     >> /tmp/hl.md
  echo '```'        >> /tmp/hl.md
  pandoc -s --highlight-style=$style /tmp/hl.md \
    | sed -n '/<style>/,/<\/style>/p' \
    | sed 's/<\/?style>//g' \
    > pandoc-$style.css
done

License

These CSS files are derived from Pandoc's built-in themes, which are part of the skylighting library, distributed under the GPL-2.0 license or the BSD-3-Clause license.