--resource-path and \graphicspath

[bgrenet]

As far as I can tell, --resource-path is not used when converting a markdown file to .tex, standalone. Consider the following input file mwe.md:

This is an image : ![](img.jpg)

• If img.jpg is in the same directory as mwe.md, one can do either:

  • pandoc mwe.md -o mwe.pdf
  • pandoc mwe.md -s -o mwe.tex and then pdflatex mwe.tex

• Now if img.jpg is in a subdirectory fig/, one can do pandoc mwe.md --resource-path=fig/ -o mwe.pdf. But it is not possible to go through .tex since pandoc mwe.md --resource-path=fig/ -s -o mwe.tex will produce the exact same file as without the option --resource-path. A workaround would be that --resource-path makes the LaTeX writer issue a \graphicspath{{fig/}}. Another solution would be for pandoc to look for img.jpg, and directly issue an \includegraphics{fig/img.jpg}.

Does at least one solution make sense?

P.S.: The exact same issue occurs if for images in SVG, with \includesvg and \svgpath from the package svg.

[jgm]

--resource-path is only used when pandoc itself tries to find images. When it's generating TeX, it does not need to, so --resource-path does nothing.

We could think about the two options you gave, but I'm a bit worried about expanding expectations around --resource-path. (E.g., if we have the TeX writer try to find images using the resource path and rewrite image paths, shouldn't we do that for all the writers?)

[bgrenet]

Maybe my real request is a way to access the .tex file produced by pandoc when creating a pdf file through LaTeX. This would be sometimes useful when some compilation errors occur during the call to pandoc. More generally, having a way to easily and faithfully produce a .tex file that can produce the same output as pandoc input.md -o output.pdf would be a great for all the occasions where one is asked to produce a .tex file that will be compiled (say arXiv, some editors, …).

I would have thought that --resource-path=... + --standalone is the way to go, but if there is another one it is as good. (Maybe an option --keep-tex-file or something like that?)

[jgm]

One option here is to use --pdf-engine=latexmk --pdf-engine-opt=-outdir=build. Then you can look in the (persistent) build directory and find the tex file.

Another option is simply to use --verbose and capture stderr; the entire tex file will be there.

[cagix]

--resource-path is only used when pandoc itself tries to find images. When it's generating TeX, it does not need to, so --resource-path does nothing.

When reading the current documentation this was not clear to me. Since this option appears in section “general writer options”, it would help if you could add this sentence to the documentation, please?

Edit: Opened #9417 to clarify the relevant section in the man page.