# Pandoc 3.8.1 — pandoc 3.8.1

- Product: Pandoc (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/pandoc)
- Vendor: John MacFarlane
- Date: 2025-09-29
- Version: 3.8.1
- Original notes: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/3.8.1
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/pandoc/releases/3.8.1

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

---

- **added** — New output format vimdoc for Vim documentation
- **added** — New shorthands variable allows activating babel shorthands in LaTeX/PDF output
- **added** — New module Text.Pandoc.Writers.Vimdoc, exporting writeVimdoc
- **added** — New functions tableWithSpans, tableWithSpans', toTableComponentsWithSpans, and toTableComponentsWithSpans' in Text.Pandoc.Parsing
- **added** — New function removeLinks in Text.Pandoc.Shared
- **added** — Export functions formatTypstBlock, formatTypstInline, styleToTypst from Text.Pandoc.Highlighting
- **added** — Support for reading typst pagebreak, parsed as a HorizontalRule inside a wrapper Div with class page-break
- **added** — Parse :alt: on figure in RST reader
- **added** — Support col spans for simple tables in RST reader
- **changed** — --syntax-highlighting now works as expected for typst output
- **changed** — Improve superscript/subscript/inline note parsing in Markdown reader
- **changed** — Docx reader uses Tasty.Golden for tests allowing updates with --accept
- **changed** — LaTeX writer now makes beamer footnotes compatible with pauses
- **changed** — Markdown writer improves handling of implicit figures
- **changed** — Markdown writer uses approximate pipe tables when it's the only option
- **fixed** — Fix simple table alignment in Markdown reader by taking wide characters into account
- **fixed** — Fix regression in simple table parsing in RST reader
- **fixed** — Fix syntax highlighting in Typst writer
- **fixed** — Fix regression from 3.8 in highlighted code in Docx writer
- **removed** — Remove coloring for links in epub.css so that the reader's defaults will be used

```
I'm pleased to announce the release of pandoc 3.8.1,
available in the usual places:

Binary packages & changelog:
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/3.8.1

Source & API documentation:
http://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-3.8.1

This release introduces a few new features and fixes some bugs
and regressions. Of special note:

- New output format vimdoc (for Vim documentation).
- --syntax-highlighting now works as expected for typst output.
- New shorthands variable allows activating babel shorthands
  in LaTeX/PDF output.
- Removed coloring for links in epub.css, so that the reader's
  defaults will be used.

API changes:

- New module Text.Pandoc.Writers.Vimdoc, exporting writeVimdoc.
- Text.Pandoc.Parsing: new functions tableWithSpans,
  tableWithSpans', toTableComponentsWithSpans, and
  toTableComponentsWithSpans'.
- Text.Pandoc.Shared: new function removeLinks.
- Text.Pandoc.Highlighting: export functions formatTypstBlock,
  formatTypstInline, styleToTypst (from skylighting).

Thanks to all who contributed, especially Tuong Nguyen Manh (who
has been working hard to improve table support) and new contributors
Raymond Berger and reptee.
```

<details>
  <summary>Click to expand changelog</summary>

- New output format `vimdoc` (Vim documentation format) (#11132, reptee).

  - \[API change\] Added module Text.Pandoc.Writers.Vimdoc, exporting `writeVimdoc`.

- Markdown reader:

  - Improve superscript/subscript/inline note parsing (#8652). We do not allow inline notes to be followed by `(` or `[`. Otherwise, we parse inline notes before superscripts. Also, the sub/superscript parsers have been adjusted so that they really exclude unescaped spaces (as they did not before, when the spaces occurred in nested inlines).
  - Fix simple table alignment (#11136, Tuong Nguyen Manh). Take wide characters into account when determining the alignment.

- LaTeX reader:

  - Ignore `\pandocbounded` (#11140).

- XML reader:

  - Parse `<MetaString>` (#11137, massifrg).

- Typst reader:

  - Add support for reading typst pagebreak (#11101, Raymond Berger). The pagebreak is parsed as a HorizontalRule inside a wrapper Div with class `page-break`.

- Docx reader:

  - Handle figures in indented paragraphs (#11028).
  - Change default for textwidth. This should only be used if `sectPr` is not found.
  - Properly calculate table column widths (#9837, #11147). Previously we assumed that every table took up the full text width. Now we read the text width from the document’s `sectPr`.
  - Use Tasty.Golden for Docx reader tests. This way we can update them with `--accept`.

- RST reader:

  - Fix regression in simple table parsing (#11150).
  - SkippedContent warning if table directive contains non-tabular content.
  - Simple tables: leading space in a cell should not cause the contents to be parsed as a block quote (#11146).
  - Parse `:alt:` on figure (#11140). Also give a better default if `alt` is not specified, using the stringified caption rather than the filename.
  - Support col spans for simple tables (Tuong Nguyen Manh).

- Markdown writer:

  - Improve handling of implicit figures (#11140). Allow implicit figures when alt text differs from caption (in this case, we use an image attribute to add the alt).
  - Use approximate pipe tables when it’s the only option (#11128). If we have a table with row/colspans that can rendered as an approximate pipe table (without row/colspans), and no other table format is enabled that could render the table, we fall back to an “approximate” pipe table, with no row/colspans.

- RST writer:

  - Ensure blank line before directives (#11162).
  - Add col spans for simple tables (#10127, Tuong Nguyen Manh).

- OpenDocument writer:

  - Add missing table elements (#10002, Tuong Nguyen Manh). Add missing header rows after the first one, footer rows as well as TableBody header rows.

- Docx writer:

  - Fix regre

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/3.8.1]_