Advanced MD to PDF ⚡

Convert Markdown to PDF instantly with a single click. Beautiful GitHub-style formatting with syntax highlighting, Mermaid diagrams, KaTeX math, GitHub alerts, collapsible <details>, themes, and smart overflow handling.

✨ Features

⚡ Super Fast — Persistent browser instance for near-instant conversions
🎨 Themes — github-light, github-dark, and academic, plus custom CSS and font overrides
📊 Mermaid Diagrams — ```mermaid blocks rendered to crisp vector graphics
🧮 Math — KaTeX inline $…$ and block $$…$$ LaTeX with bundled fonts
📣 GitHub Alerts — > [!NOTE], [!TIP], [!IMPORTANT], [!WARNING], [!CAUTION]
📂 Collapsible Details — <details> blocks are auto-expanded so nothing is hidden
🔗 Smart Links & Overflow — Working internal anchors, wrapped long code/URLs, fitted wide tables
📑 Rich Markdown — TOC, footnotes, emoji, task lists, definition lists, sub/sup, ==highlight==, abbreviations
🖱️ One-Click — Convert from title bar, context menu, status bar, or convert a whole folder
⌨️ Keyboard Shortcut — Cmd+Alt+P (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+P (Windows/Linux)
🖨️ Headers & Footers — Page numbers, title, date, and file path tokens
👀 PDF Viewer — View generated PDFs directly in VS Code
⬇️ Zero-Config Browser — Auto-detects Chrome/Edge, or downloads Chrome automatically when none is found

📸 Screenshots

Preview

Feature Preview

See examples/feature-showcase.md for the source file.

🚀 Usage

Method 1: Title Bar Button

Click the PDF button in the editor title bar when viewing a Markdown file.

Right-click on a .md file in the Explorer or editor and select MD to PDF: Convert to PDF.

Method 3: Status Bar

Click the PDF button in the status bar when a Markdown file is open.

Method 4: Keyboard Shortcut

Press Cmd+Alt+P (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+P (Windows/Linux) while editing a Markdown file.

Method 5: Convert a Folder

Right-click a folder in the Explorer and select MD to PDF: Convert All Markdown in Folder.

⚙️ Settings

Output & layout

Setting	Default	Description
`md-to-pdf.openAfterConversion`	`true`	Automatically open PDF after conversion
`md-to-pdf.pageFormat`	`"A4"`	A4, Letter, Legal, A3, A5, A6, Tabloid
`md-to-pdf.landscape`	`false`	Render pages in landscape orientation
`md-to-pdf.scale`	`1`	Render scale (0.1–2) to shrink wide content
`md-to-pdf.margins`	`{...}`	Page margins (top, right, bottom, left)
`md-to-pdf.onFileExists`	`"overwrite"`	`overwrite` or `newFile` (adds a sequence number)
`md-to-pdf.outputDirectory`	`""`	Where to write PDFs (relative to the source file, or absolute)
`md-to-pdf.viewer`	`"internal"`	`system` (default app) or `internal` (VS Code)
`md-to-pdf.header` / `md-to-pdf.footer`	`{ enabled: false }`	Running header/footer; tokens: `{title} {date} {pageNumber} {totalPages} {filePath}`

Styling

Setting	Default	Description
`md-to-pdf.theme`	`"github-light"`	`github-light`, `github-dark`, or `academic`
`md-to-pdf.customCss`	`""`	Path to a CSS file appended after the theme
`md-to-pdf.fonts`	`{}`	`body`, `mono`, and `size` overrides

Content & rendering

Setting	Default	Description
`md-to-pdf.mermaid.enabled` / `md-to-pdf.mermaid.theme`	`true` / `"auto"`	Render Mermaid diagrams and choose their theme
`md-to-pdf.math.enabled`	`true`	Render KaTeX math
`md-to-pdf.alerts.enabled`	`true`	Render GitHub-style alerts/callouts
`md-to-pdf.toc.enabled`	`true`	`[[toc]]`/`[TOC]` and heading anchors
`md-to-pdf.emoji`	`true`	Render `:emoji:` shortcodes
`md-to-pdf.extraSyntax`	`true`	Definition lists, sub/sup, `==mark==`, abbreviations
`md-to-pdf.expandDetails`	`true`	Expand `<details>` so content is visible
`md-to-pdf.embedImages`	`true`	Embed local images as data URIs
`md-to-pdf.linkRenderUrls`	`false`	Print the URL after external links
`md-to-pdf.codeBlocks.wordWrap`	`true`	Wrap long code lines instead of clipping
`md-to-pdf.tables.wide`	`"wrap"`	`wrap` cells or `shrink` font for wide tables
`md-to-pdf.convertFolder.recursive`	`false`	Include subfolders when converting a folder

Browser

Setting	Default	Description
`md-to-pdf.browserPath`	`""`	Explicit Chrome/Chromium/Edge path (auto-detected, then auto-downloaded, if empty)
`md-to-pdf.timeout`	`120000`	Max time (ms) to wait while rendering. Set to `0` to disable for very large documents

Example Configuration

{
  "md-to-pdf.theme": "github-dark",
  "md-to-pdf.pageFormat": "Letter",
  "md-to-pdf.footer": {
    "enabled": true,
    "template": "{pageNumber} / {totalPages}"
  },
  "md-to-pdf.tables.wide": "shrink",
  "md-to-pdf.linkRenderUrls": true
}

📋 Requirements

VS Code 1.85.0 or higher
Browser: Chrome, Chromium, Microsoft Edge, or Brave (automatically detected)

🛠️ Supported Markdown Features

✅ Headings (H1–H6) with anchors and internal links
✅ Bold, italic, strikethrough, ==highlight==, sub~script~, super^script^
✅ Links (with optional printed URLs) and images (embedded as data URIs)
✅ Ordered, unordered, task, and definition lists
✅ Code blocks with syntax highlighting (long lines wrap)
✅ Tables (wide tables wrap or shrink to fit)
✅ Blockquotes and GitHub-style alerts/callouts
✅ Collapsible <details> (auto-expanded)
✅ Mermaid diagrams and KaTeX math
✅ Footnotes, table of contents, emoji, abbreviations
✅ Raw HTML, horizontal rules, ASCII diagrams

🐛 Known Issues

Very large files (tens of thousands of lines) and documents with many Mermaid diagrams take longer to convert. If you hit a timeout, raise md-to-pdf.timeout or set it to 0 to disable the limit. Extremely large documents are also memory-heavy in Chrome — if conversion is very slow, consider splitting them or using Convert All Markdown in Folder on per-chapter files.
Web fonts referenced only by name must be installed locally to render in the PDF

📝 Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md for release notes.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

📄 License

This extension is licensed under the MIT License.

Enjoy! If you find this extension useful, please consider leaving a ⭐️ review on the marketplace.

Advanced MD to PDF

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