Pandoc can convert just about any document into any other document
default LaTeX Layout YAML
When pandoc is used with -t markdown to create a Markdown document, a YAML metadata block will be produced only if the -s/--standalone option is used. All of the metadata will appear in a single block at the beginning of the document.
Here is a YAML frontmatter with all possible settings of the default latex template
---
title: 'Title of Document'
subtitle: 'Subtitle for Document'
author:
- A. Writer
- Ann Other Writer
date: November 27, 2018
institute:
- list of organizations
- that the authors
- are affiliated with
abstract: |
This is a blurb about the work.
The abstract comes from academia where it describes what the work is about.
---
example command
pandoc book.md \ # input file
-s \ # standalone
--toc \ # generate a table of contents
--smart \ # Interpret typography more cleverly than the default
--wrap=preserve \ # preserve line breaks
--latex-engine=xelatex \ # build using XeLaTeX
--template=layout.tex \ # use a specific latex template for layout
-o book.pdf # output file
Links
https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html
http://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#variables-set-by-pandoc