Markdown to PDF (CJK Support)

Convert Markdown to professional PDFs with full Chinese/Japanese/Korean text support.

Why This Exists

Most Markdown-to-PDF tools break on CJK characters, require LaTeX, or need heavy dependencies. This skill uses reportlab for lightweight, reliable PDF generation that works on any server — including 2GB RAM VPS instances.

Usage

python3 {baseDir}/scripts/md_to_pdf.py input.md "Document Title" output.pdf

Features

• ✅ Full CJK text rendering (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
• ✅ Markdown headings, bold, italic, bullet lists, code blocks
• ✅ Tables with proper column alignment
• ✅ Automatic page breaks and numbering
• ✅ Lightweight — runs on minimal servers (2GB RAM)
• ✅ No LaTeX, no wkhtmltopdf, no Chrome/Puppeteer needed

Supported Markdown Elements

• # H1 through #### H4 headings
• **bold** and *italic*
• - bullet lists (nested supported)
• | table | rows | (pipe-delimited tables)
• `inline code` and code blocks
• --- horizontal rules

Dependencies

pip3 install reportlab

Font Configuration

The script auto-detects CJK fonts in common locations:

• /usr/share/fonts/ (Linux)
• /System/Library/Fonts/ (macOS)

If no CJK font is found, it falls back to Helvetica (CJK characters will not render). Install a CJK font:

# RHEL/CentOS/Alibaba Cloud Linux
sudo yum install -y google-noto-sans-cjk-ttc-fonts

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install -y fonts-noto-cjk

Use Cases

• Generate PDF reports from AI analysis (audit reports, summaries)
• Convert documentation to distributable format
• Create invoices, proposals, or contracts in CJK languages
• Batch convert multiple Markdown files to PDF