Using Python-Markdown on the Command Line ========================================= While Python-Markdown is primarily a python library, a command line script is included as well. While there are many other command line implementations of Markdown, you may not have them installed, or you may prefer to use Python-Markdown's various extensions. Setup ----- Generally, you may simply call the ``python markdown.py`` file from the command line. However, if you have fully installed Markdown (``setup.py install`` or ``easy_install``), then the ``markdown.py`` script will have been copied to you Python "Scripts" directory. Different systems require different methods to ensure that any files in the Python "Scripts" directory are on your system path. * **Windows**: 1. Assuming a default install on Windows, your "Scripts" directory is mostly likely something like ``C:\\Python25\Scripts``. Verify the location of your "Scripts" directory and add it to you system path. 2. Make sure Windows is setup to recognize files that end with the "``.py``" extension are associated with ``python.exe`` so that you can simply call the script directly. Note that due to a peculiarity of how things work on Windows, you cannot just ``cd`` into the directory of the source distribution and run ``markdown.py`` from there. It will try to import itself rather than the markdown library. While a safeguard has been put in place to block this from happening, if ``markdown.py`` is in the same directory as the markdown library, then the safeguard blocks both from importing and the script won't be able to run. * **Linux**: As each Linux distribution is different and we can't possible document all of them here, we'll provide a few helpful pointers: * Some systems will automatically install the script on your path. Try it and see if it works. Just run ``markdown.py`` from the command line. * Other systems may maintain a separate "Scripts" directory which you need to add to your path. Find it (check with your distribution) and either add it to your path or make a symbolic link to it from your path. * If you are sure ``markdown.py`` is on your path, but it still isn't being found, check the permissions of the file and make sure it is executable. As an alternative, you could just ``cd`` into the directory which contains the source distribution, and run it from there. However, remember that your markdown text files will not likely be in that directory, so it is much more convenient to have ``markdown.py`` on your path. The Basics ---------- To use ``markdown.py`` from the command line, run it as $ markdown.py input_file.txt or $ markdown.py input_file.txt > output_file.html More Options ------------ If you are using Python 2.3 or higher, you can also use advanced command line options to specify encoding or to run extensions. $ markdown.py --help Usage: markdown.py INPUTFILE [options] Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -f OUTPUT_FILE, --file=OUTPUT_FILE write output to OUTPUT_FILE -e ENCODING, --encoding=ENCODING encoding for input and output files -q, --quiet suppress all messages -v, --verbose print info messages -s SAFE_MODE, --safe=SAFE_MODE safe mode ('replace', 'remove' or 'escape' user's HTML tag) -o OUTPUT_FORMAT, --output_format=OUTPUT_FORMAT Format of output. One of 'xhtml1' (default) or 'html4'. --noisy print debug messages -x EXTENSION, --extension=EXTENSION load extension EXTENSION Using Extensions ---------------- For an extension to be ran this way it must be provided in a module which should be in your python path (see [[writing_extensions]] for details). It can then be invoked by the name of that module: $ markdown.py -x footnotes text_with_footnotes.txt > output.html If the extension supports config options, you can pass them in as well: $ markdown.py -x "footnotes(PLACE_MARKER=~~~~~~~~)" input.txt