pfpdf

pfpdf is a command-line tool that renders Markdown files into print-quality PDFs, built by Preferred Networks Research. It targets documents where typography matters, pairing GitHub Flavored Markdown with a rendering pipeline based on Vivliostyle and Chromium. Rather than a web editor, it ships as an npm package runnable through npx, so the source of truth stays a plain Markdown file in your repository.

The feature set goes beyond basic conversion. Inline and display math, fenced code blocks with highlighting, tables, task lists, and autolinks work without extra configuration. BibTeX bibliographies are supported through front matter and cite{key} commands, producing numbered citations and a reference list. Seven bundled templates span academic and technical layouts, and a –logo flag injects your own logo, which is never bundled by default.

Japanese typesetting is the differentiator: emphasis adjacent to full-width punctuation renders correctly, and redistributable bundled fonts avoid dependency headaches. This makes it especially relevant for Japanese-language papers, reports, and internal documentation, alongside English technical writing that needs consistent print output.

Typical users are researchers preparing manuscripts, engineers generating specification PDFs from docs-as-code repositories, and technical writers who want reproducible builds. Because it runs via npx, no global installation is required, and the same command works in CI pipelines.

A practical approa