Targets

A target is a bundle of document class, page layout, and validation rules. Set one value in pandoc.yaml and the infrastructure handles the rest:

target: book

target is an author-friendly abstraction over LaTeX's documentclass — it also pins the preamble, the page-layout package, and which metadata fields are required, so you set one thing instead of assembling several.

The rest of this manual says book for whatever your target produces. Every setting applies to every target unless a page says otherwise.

The six targets

Each standard target has a KOMA-Script counterpart — same role, modern European book typography. book is the default.

Every target also requires title and author. The chapter-vs-section split is what makes a # heading a chapter (book, report) or a section (article).

Pick by shape of work:

• book — chaptered works with recto/verso layout (novels, monographs).
• report — chaptered, single-sided (theses, manuals).
• article — shorter, section-level work (essays, papers).

Standard vs KOMA

The scr* targets compile the same manuscript with the same handlers, shortcuts, and metadata — only the typography differs. KOMA-Script carries an opinionated set of defaults tuned for European book publishing; choosing a KOMA target opts into them. The most-noticed differences:

• Running headers and footers are italicized.
• Wider margins and a narrower text column (KOMA computes margins as a proportion of the page), so the same manuscript runs a few pages longer.
• Adjusted chapter and section heading spacing.

If a KOMA default looks unexpected, the answer is almost always in the KOMA-Script documentation rather than in Keystone — Keystone's contribution is the page-furniture contract, which is identical on both.

Base font size

fontsize in pandoc.yaml sets the PDF base size. The accepted sizes are a property of the target's document class:

• Standard (book, report, article) — 10pt, 11pt, 12pt.
• KOMA (scrbook, scrreprt, scrartcl) — 10pt, 11pt, 12pt, 13pt, 14pt, 17pt, 20pt.

An unsupported size falls back to the nearest allowed one with a warning — or a hard error under strict builds. To set a size above 12pt, switch to the KOMA counterpart of your target.

Two-sided layout

book and scrbook are two-sided (twoside): right-hand (recto) and left-hand (verso) pages can carry different running content. The convention is book title on the verso, chapter title on the recto, and the page number on the outside edge. The other targets are single-sided.

Flip either default without changing the class:

classoption: oneside   # or: twoside

The flip carries the page number with it: the folio falls back to the outside edge on a two-sided document, to the center of the footer on a one-sided one. See Running headers & footers.

On a single-sided layout, the verso variants of running headers compile but never render (every page is treated as recto). See Running headers & footers.

Required fields

Validation runs against the active target and stops the build if a required field is missing:

• book / scrbook need description.
• article / report (and KOMA variants) need abstract.

For the non-book targets, a single abstract flows through to the EPUB description and PDF subject automatically — you don't set those separately unless you want different text in each. See Book metadata.