markdown2pdf: A Minimal Way to Turn Markdown into PDF

For years, I've relied on Markdown for notes, documentation, and blog drafts like this one.

But converting .md files to polished PDFs is often more complicated than necessary.

I've used Pandoc; it works well but is overkill for simple needs. The Markdown-to-HTML-to-PDF process feels cumbersome and error-prone.

Recently, my close friend created markdown2pdf—a command-line tool and library in Rust.

The Essence of markdown2pdf

markdown2pdf turns Markdown into styled PDFs by parsing it into semantic elements and applying configurable styles.

CLI: Convert Markdown from files, URLs, or input to PDFs with TOML config for styles.
Rust Library: Integrate into projects for control over conversion and formatting.

It avoids external tools like browsers or LaTeX, keeping it self-contained and fast.

Using it is straightforward.


cargo install markdown2pdf

Convert a file:


markdown2pdf -p "docs/resume.md" -o "resume.pdf"

From a URL:


markdown2pdf -u "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/README.md" -o "readme.pdf"

It skips complex tables, basic image handling, and limits styling on purpose—that's its strength.

For clean PDFs from Markdown without heavy setup, it excels and delivers quick results.

I'm not the author, but I appreciate its lightweight power in the Rust ecosystem.

If you use Markdown often and need simple PDF generation, try markdown2pdf.

It's focused and efficient.

შესანიშნავი საქმეა, ძმაო 🇬🇪 ❤️