# Pandoc 3.8 — pandoc 3.8

- Product: Pandoc (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/pandoc)
- Vendor: John MacFarlane
- Date: 2025-09-06
- Version: 3.8
- Original notes: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/3.8
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/pandoc/releases/3.8

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** — Add a new input and output format xml that exactly represents a pandoc AST in a more easily human-readable form than JSON
- **added** — Add a new command line option --syntax-highlighting that takes the values 'none', 'default', 'idiomatic', a style name, or a path to a theme file
- **added** — Add smart_quotes and special_strings extensions for org mode to more closely reproduce Emacs org-mode behavior
- **added** — Create directory of output file if it doesn't exist
- **added** — Add new modules Text.Pandoc.Readers.XML and Text.Pandoc.Writers.XML
- **added** — Add Point and Pica as constructors of ImageSize and Avif constructor of ImageType
- **added** — Export new functions from Text.Pandoc.Class: getRequestHeaders, setRequestHeaders, getSourceURL, getTrace
- **changed** — Update --version copyright dates and use hardcoded string 'pandoc' for the program name per GNU guidelines
- **changed** — Text.Pandoc.Extensions: added constructors Ext_smart_quotes and Ext_special_strings
- **changed** — Text.Pandoc.App now exports versionInfo function that takes three parameters
- **changed** — Text.Pandoc.Parsing: tableWith and tableWith' now return a list of lists of Blocks allowing for multiple header rows
- **changed** — Text.Pandoc.Class: CommonState is now opaque and does not support its fields
- **changed** — LaTeX reader: change handling of math environments to retain original environments like align and equation in Math inlines instead of downshifting them
- **changed** — Org reader: improve sub- and superscript parsing to correctly handle text preceded by space or at the start of a paragraph
- **fixed** — Make -t chunkedhtml -o - output to stdout rather than creating a directory called -
- **fixed** — Typst reader: fix addition of image path prefix to use posix separator
- **fixed** — HTML reader: don't drop the initial newline in a pre element
- **deprecated** — --no-highlighting and --highlight-style options are deprecated in favor of --syntax-highlighting
- **removed** — Remove the old compact_definition_lists extension

```
I'm pleased to announce the release of pandoc 3.8,
available in the usual places:

Binary packages & changelog:
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/3.8

Source & API documentation:
http://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-3.8

This release comes with many small improvements and a few larger ones.
Among the more visible changes:

+ A new input/output format xml, which exactly represents a pandoc
  AST in a more easily human-readable form than JSON. The format is
  documented in doc/xml.md, and schemas can be found in tools/pandoc-xml.*.

+ A new command line option --syntax-highlighting, which takes the
  values 'none', 'default', 'idiomatic', a style name, or a path to
  a theme file.  --no-highlighting and --highlight-style are deprecated.

+ New extensions smart_quotes and special_strings for org mode.
  These allow pandoc's parsing to more closely reproduce Emacs org-mode's
  behavior.

+ The old compact_definition_lists extension has been removed.

API changes:

+ New modules Text.Pandoc.Readers.XML (exporting readXML) and
  Text.Pandoc.Writers.XML (exporting writeXML).

+ Text.Pandoc.Extensions: added constructors Ext_smart_quotes,
  Ext_special_strings; removed Ext_compact_definition_lists.

+ Text.Pandoc.App now exports versionInfo, a function that takes
  three parameters that can be filled in by pandoc-cli.

+ Text.Pandoc.Parsing: tableWith and tableWith' now return
  a list of lists of Blocks, allowing for multiple header rows.

+ Text.Pandoc.ImageSize: Add Point and Pica as constructors of
  ImageSize.  Add Avif constructor of ImageType.

+ Text.Pandoc.Class: CommonState is now opaque and does not support
  its fields.  To compensate for this, we now export several
  new functions: getRequestHeaders, setRequestHeaders, getSourceURL,
  getTrace.

Thanks to all who contributed, especially new contributors
Christopher Kenny, Erik Post, Repetitive, Reuben Thomas, Ryan Gibb,
Sean Soon, and massifrg.
```

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

- Add a new input and output format `xml`, exactly representing a Pandoc AST and isomorphic to the existing `native` and `json` formats (massifrg). XML schemas for validation can be found in `tools/pandoc-xml.*`. The format is documented in `doc/xml.md`. Pandoc now defaults to this reader and writer when the `.xml` extension is used.

  Two new exported modules are added \[API change\]: Text.Pandoc.Readers.XML, exporting `readXML`, and Text.Pandoc.Writers.XML, exporting `writeXML`. A new unexported module Text.Pandoc.XMLFormat is also added.

- Add a new command line option `--syntax-highlighting`; this takes the values `none`, `default`, `idiomatic`, a style name, or a path to a theme file. It replaces the `--no-highlighting`, `--highlighting-style`, and `--listings` options, which will still work but with a deprecation warning. (Albert Krewinkel)

- Create directory of output file if it doesn’t exist (#11040).

- Update `--version` copyright dates (#10961), and use a hardcoded string “pandoc” for the program name in `--version`, per GNU guidelines.

- Add `smart_quotes` and `special_strings` extensions (Albert Krewinkel). Currently these only affect `org`. Org mode makes a distinction between smart parsing of quotes, and smart parsing of special strings like `...`. The finer grained control over these features is necessary to truthfully reproduce Emacs Org mode behavior. Special strings are enabled by default, while smart quotes are disabled.

- Remove the old `compact_definition_lists` extension. This was neded to preserve backwards compatibility after pandoc 1.12 was released, but at this point we can get rid of it.

- Make `-t chunkedhtml -o -` output to stdout (as documented), rather than creating a directory called `-` (#11068).

- RST reader: Support multiple header rows (#10338, TuongNM).

- LaTeX reader:

  - Support soft hyphens (Albert Krewinkel).
  - Parse `\mini

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/3.8]_