latex - Slides with Columns in Pandoc

Question

I would like to have code and an image side-by-side in a Beamer slide.

In LaTeX I would do this with columns. I would like to use markdown within the column structure.

egin{columns}
column{.5extwidth}

~~~~~~~~Python
>>> some python code
~~~~~~~

column{.5extwidth}

![](A_generated_image.pdf)

end{columns}

Unfortunately Pandoc doesn't process the markdown within the egin{columns} and end{columns} statements. Is there a way around this?

• Is there a way to use markdown within inlined LaTeX?
• Is there a pure markdown solution?

Answer 1

Current versions of pandoc (i.e., pandoc 2.0 and later) supports fenced divs. Specially named divs are transformed into columns when targeting a slides format:

# This slide has columns

::: columns

:::: column
left
::::

:::: column
right
::::

:::

Pandoc translates this into the following LaTeX beamer code:

egin{frame}{This slide has columns}
protecthypertarget{this-slide-has-columns}{}

egin{columns}[T]
egin{column}{0.48extwidth}
left
end{column}

egin{column}{0.48extwidth}
right
end{column}
end{columns}

end{frame}

This is simple and has the additional advantage of giving similar results when targeting other presentational formats like reveal.js.

More than two columns work out of the box for Beamer output. Powerpoint, however, only supports two columns. For reveal.js, the widths of three or more columns must be given explicitly:

::: columns

:::: {.column width=30%}
left
::::

:::: {.column width=30%}
middle
::::

:::: {.column width=30%}
right
::::

:::