MarkDoc Mini (v.4.2.0) is independent of third-party software

[haghish]

I am introducing a new option in MarkDoc, called mini that allows running MarkDoc without requiring any third-party software, apart from Stata version 15 or above. Here is the main announcement on GitHub Wiki. I also provided an example do file that can be used to produce a Microsoft Word docx, html, pdf, or Stata help file, without requiring Pandoc, pdf-printer, etc... fully written with Stata 15.

The package also includes a built-in Markdown to Docx and Markdown to PDF converter which is called mdconvert.ado. If you would like to help to improve it. The PDF output certainly needs some style correction, but that can wait until possible bugs are fixed.


You can update or install MarkDoc, using the github package (MarkDoc is not hosted on SSC anymore). If github is installed, type:

github install haghish/markdoc

And you should be good to go creating dynamic documents in md, html, docx, pdf, and sthlp, from do-files, smcl log-files, or Stata Ado/Mata files. Although for generating dynamic documents do-files are recommended because MarkDoc examines the reproducibility of the code by running it in a fresh Stata environment.

All of the MarkDoc features, such as syntax highlighter, document styles, dynamic tables, figures, etc, are supported. In addition, there is a new GUI that should make working with MarkDoc Mini much easier. Just type:

db mini

The MarkDoc Mini is just an add-on of MarkDoc and the original package (which requires Pandoc and wkhtmltopdf) will be maintained regularly.
What is needed is testing and bug reports because the new option is still in beta mode. Within my current test files, the new mode seems to be fully functional (see the supported syntax on GitHub Wiki), but I hope with your help, a stable version for this mode would be reached much faster. If you are new to MarkDoc, you find useful information on the GitHub repository https://github.com/haghish/markdoc. Please kindly report the bugs on GitHub as well.

[Attaullah Shah]

MarkDoc is not hosted on SSC anymore

Can you explain why?

[haghish]

I'm submitting a manuscript to Stata Journal about the github package soon, explaining this point.

[Attaullah Shah]

Does github collect and show download statistics of a package as we have this facility in ssc.

[haghish]

It does provide a variety of traffic information on daily basis, for the owner of the repository only. I wouldn't use GitHub for such traffic reports though, it offers much more than a hosting serve... It can entirely change your workflow, the way you develop, maintain, and document your packages...

[haghish]

and it seems GitHub also allows accessing the download counts via the API: https://help.github.com/articles/get...your-releases/

[David Glauser]

Dear Hagish

I have installed your packages in 2020 with two of my classes using:

net install github, from("https://haghish.github.io/github/") replace
github install haghish/markdoc, stable

When my students then generated a .md file and ran

pandoc filename.md -s -o filename.html

for the first time, they were able to simply hit the link Install Pandoc Automatically (and later: Install wkhtmltopdf Automatically) and everything worked just fine.

When using the same procedure now to test MarkDoc and clicking on "Click Here To Test MarkDoc When The Download Is Over!", which is initializing

markdoc, test

I get the following error message:

file http://www.haghish.com/packages/markdoc/example.do not found
server says file temporarily redirected to https://www.haghish.com/packages/markdoc/example.do

So the error occurs because the example.do file is now available from https and no longer from http.

My students could also install pandoc manually and then use the

whereis.ado

described here (https://data.princeton.edu/stata/whereis), but the automatic installation via MarkDoc is much easier.

Please let me know if you find time to update the link used in

markdoc, test

.
Thanks in advance!
Best
David

David Glauser
University of Bern, Department of Sociology of Education
[email protected]

[haghish]

Hi David,

You are right. I changed the security of the website a few days ago. I will update MarkDoc the next days to include the HTTPS links. Thank you for notifying me. while a period of indeterminate length (usually short) marked by some action or condition More (Definitions, Synonyms, Translation)