Writing Technical Books with Pandoc and Markdown

A template to make it easier to write technical books (especially books with code) with Pandoc and Markdown.

You can download one of my books made with this template, for free, to see how the end result looks like: Python Guide for Beginners

The template has the following structure:

In 2020 I decided to start a new project, a blog.

After a few months of writing about programming, I thought "hey, maybe I should write a book".

The topic would be a simple and straight forward guide for beginners about the Python programming language.

The book was downloaded over 4,000 times and counting and I have received multiple messages on e-mail and social media of people thanking me for the book.

This is the nice part of the story, but when I started writing the book I had some problems.

I thought: "this is a programming book, it will have code, of course, but how do I format it as painlessly as possible?".

LaTex was my first option, I was experienced with it and knew how to make it work, but at the time I was writing a lot in Markdown, the format of choice for many technical bloggers due to its simplicity.

For that reason, I went on to look for a tool that allowed me to easily write in Markdown and then compile my text into other formats.

It was harder than expected!

Some tools were no longer supported by their creators, others had some limitations and then I finally found Pandoc.

It was everything I needed: a free, open-source, markdown compiler with many options, and it was easy to install.

But as with many tools, to make really good and productive use of it takes some time.

My intention with this book is to give you an advantage by learning and using the exact same structure I use to write and publish my books.

I will also provide some tips about how I organize myself to start and *finish* the books.

There is nothing worse than one more unfinished project.

You’ll get a copy of the book in PDF and a Zip file with the same template I use to write my own books.

You also get access to all updates to the book.

Table of Contents:

1. Why Pandoc?

2. Tools

3. How to use the Ebook Template

4. Tips For New Writers

5. Markdown Cheatsheet

Any questions: renan@renanmf.com

I have a blog and a weekly newsletter about programming.