Fifteen hand-designed PDF templates that sit on top of a single markdown editor. Sales proposal, research report, manuscript, résumé, editorial — pick the template, the same source file becomes a different document. The press is the product.
TL;DR — the 15 templates
- Business: Sales Proposal, Whitepaper, Memo, Corporate.
- Research: Research Report, Academic Paper, Thesis, Technical Report.
- Prose: Editorial, Manuscript.
- Reference: Résumé, Legal Brief.
- Editorial: Magazine, Newspaper, Zine.
- One markdown source file. Switch templates with a click. The source stays clean
.md; the output is a designed PDF.
What is a markdown PDF template?
A markdown PDF template is a designed page-layout that takes a plain markdown file and renders it as a styled PDF. Typography, margins, headers, footers, cover page, code blocks, tables, footnotes, bibliography — all already typeset. You write the words in markdown; the template does the typesetting work.
The pitch matters because the markdown-to-PDF middle of the market is broken. The free path (browser print, Notion export, GitHub render) produces PDFs that look amateur. The pro path (Pandoc with Eisvogel, Typst, LaTeX, hand-styled HTML through Chromium) is a black-belt skill that takes weeks to learn and breaks every upgrade. Almost nothing in the middle treats markdown as a typographic medium and ships a real PDF.
mdclaudy is our attempt at that middle. Fifteen templates ship today. Each one is hand-designed for a specific document genre. You pick the template that matches what you’re writing — and your markdown source becomes a finished page. The press is the product.
Markdown is the source. The template is the press. The PDF is the artefact you ship.
The fifteen, at a glance
Grouped by genre. Each name links to its full section below.
| Group | Template | For |
|---|---|---|
| Business | Sales Proposal | Freelancers, agencies, consultants, founders pitching services |
| Business | Whitepaper | B2B marketers, analysts, technical writers, policy shops |
| Business | Memo | Executives, founders, operators writing internal briefs |
| Business | Corporate | Communications teams, IR/PR writers, internal-comms editors |
| Research | Research Report | Analysts, consultants, in-house researchers, think-tank writers |
| Research | Academic Paper | Graduate students, postdocs, faculty, journal-bound researchers |
| Research | Thesis | Master's and doctoral candidates writing their dissertation |
| Research | Technical Report | Engineers, technical writers, RFC authors, internal R&D teams |
| Prose | Editorial | Essayists, longform journalists, indie writers, newsletter authors |
| Prose | Manuscript | Novelists, short-story writers, screenwriters drafting prose |
| Reference | Résumé | Job seekers, contractors, anyone keeping a CV under maintenance |
| Reference | Legal Brief | Lawyers, paralegals, legal-adjacent writers, policy analysts |
| Editorial | Magazine | Independent publishers, content editors, internal-magazine teams |
| Editorial | Newspaper | Editors of newsletters and community papers, comms shops, satire writers |
| Editorial | Zine | Indie writers, designers, community publishers, artists |
Business templates
The templates that go to clients, executives, investors. Restrained typography, conservative palettes, real running headers.
Sales Proposal
For: Freelancers, agencies, consultants, founders pitching services
Sample use: A six-page proposal for a $25k retainer: cover, problem, approach, deliverables, timeline, price.
A designed sales proposal template that takes your markdown — heading, bullets, pricing table — and renders it as a document that looks like an agency wrote it. Bold cover page, accent-coloured section openers, a pricing block that reads as a real deliverable rather than a Google Doc dump. Footers carry your name and the proposal title; the page numbering reads as Page 2 of 6 rather than just 2. Designed for the moment a prospect opens the PDF and decides whether you're a serious shop. Markdown source stays clean — no template lock-in.
Whitepaper
For: B2B marketers, analysts, technical writers, policy shops
Sample use: A twenty-page market analysis with charts, callouts, an executive summary, and a methodology appendix.
A whitepaper template built for documents people actually read end-to-end. Generous margins, a real running header carrying section and page, callout boxes for pull statistics, a typeset executive summary set apart from the body. Pairs with Mermaid diagrams for architecture sketches and KaTeX for the moments your argument has a formula in it. The cover page reads as a publication, not a download. Designed so that the document — not your branding — does the work of looking serious.
Memo
For: Executives, founders, operators writing internal briefs
Sample use: A one-to-three-page internal memo: TO/FROM/RE header, three or four sections, a recommendation at the end.
A memo template with the discipline of an internal communication: TO/FROM/DATE/RE header, single column, short body, no chrome. Modeled on the genre Andy Grove, Jeff Bezos, and David Ogilvy made canonical — the document that respects the reader's time. Headings are quiet; the prose carries the weight. Footers are minimal. Designed for the two-page brief that has to be read before a meeting, not the deck that has to be presented at one.
Corporate
For: Communications teams, IR/PR writers, internal-comms editors
Sample use: A quarterly update letter to investors, a corporate policy document, or a company FAQ.
A corporate template for the documents that need to feel official without feeling stiff. Restrained colour palette, conservative type, sturdy table styling, signature block at the end. Built for the audience that judges a document by what it doesn't do — no surprises in the layout, no flourishes that pull focus from the content. Pair with the company logo in the cover area and the document reads as letterhead. The genre is letters, statements, policies — not pitches.
Research templates
Long-form analytical documents. Footnotes, bibliography, KaTeX math, real tables of contents.
Research Report
For: Analysts, consultants, in-house researchers, think-tank writers
Sample use: A thirty-page market research report with executive summary, methodology, findings, charts, and bibliography.
A research report template tuned for long-form analytical writing. Two-column option for findings sections, generous space for figures and captions, footnotes that don't crowd the page, a real bibliography section. Cover page carries the report title, the author, the publication date, and an abstract — the page that gets saved as a screenshot. Page numbers and running header carry the report short-title throughout. Built for the document that gets printed, annotated, and quoted in someone else's report next quarter.
Academic Paper
For: Graduate students, postdocs, faculty, journal-bound researchers
Sample use: A conference paper or journal submission with abstract, sections, equations, footnotes, and references.
An academic paper template that produces a document a journal editor will recognise. Conservative typesetting, a typeset abstract block, numbered sections, footnote-first citation style with optional bibliography, KaTeX for inline and display math. The default is single-column with letter-sized margins; two-column is one toggle. Built for the conference deadline at 03:00 the night before submission — when the last thing you want to do is wrestle with LaTeX. The output is plain-style, archival, defensible.
Thesis
For: Master's and doctoral candidates writing their dissertation
Sample use: A 150-page dissertation with frontmatter, chapters, footnotes, a bibliography, and appendices.
A thesis template that handles the document-of-record at the end of a degree. Frontmatter pages (title, declaration, abstract, acknowledgements, contents, list of figures), numbered chapters with chapter openers, running headers per chapter, footnotes that respect the long-form medium, a real bibliography, appendices set apart. Renders cleanly to 500 pages without breaking. Modeled on UK and US university style guides; gets you most of the way to your institution's house style without owning the last 5%. mdclaudy is the editor for the year the document is written; the template is the press for the night it's submitted.
Technical Report
For: Engineers, technical writers, RFC authors, internal R&D teams
Sample use: A twenty-page technical specification or post-mortem with diagrams, code blocks, and tables.
A technical report template designed for documents engineers will actually read. Code blocks rendered with monospaced type and proper line-numbering, Mermaid diagrams styled to match the body, tables that don't fight the page, a clean numbered-section structure that reads as an RFC. Footnotes for the side notes; a real table of contents for the long ones. Cover page carries the document ID, the version, the author, the date — the metadata you actually want when you grep your downloads folder six months later.
Prose templates
The literary side of the library. Editorial essays and submission-ready manuscripts.
Editorial
For: Essayists, longform journalists, indie writers, newsletter authors
Sample use: A 4,000-word essay or feature article published as a standalone PDF.
An editorial template made for the longform essay. Wide, generous text column; serif body type with italic for emphasis; drop-cap option for the opening paragraph; small-caps section breaks. Modeled on the design vocabulary of independent magazines and presses — the family that includes The New York Review of Books, Stripe Press, and the better Substack publications. Pull quotes are typeset, not boxed. Footnotes are real footnotes. The document reads as a piece of writing, not a content asset. The kind of PDF that gets emailed around because it looks like a piece, not a page.
Manuscript
For: Novelists, short-story writers, screenwriters drafting prose
Sample use: A 60,000-word novel draft or a 5,000-word short story formatted for editor or agent submission.
A manuscript template that produces the format publishers and agents expect from a draft submission. Double-spaced body, Courier or a serif at submission size, one-inch margins, page numbers in the top-right, chapter starts on the right-hand page, no decorative chrome. Modeled on the Shunn manuscript format for short fiction and standard novel-submission conventions. Designed for the work-in-progress that still needs to read as a working draft — not the finished book, not the marketing version. The book-designed version comes later; this is the version your editor reads.
Reference templates
Documents whose job is to be looked up, not read through. Résumés and legal briefs.
Résumé
For: Job seekers, contractors, anyone keeping a CV under maintenance
Sample use: A one- or two-page résumé exported on the morning of an application.
A résumé template that takes a markdown CV and renders it as a designed single-page document. Tight typography, a real visual hierarchy between name, role, employer, and bullet, a side column for skills and contact. The same markdown source can be re-exported through three résumé sub-styles — Classical, Modern, Compact — without rewriting the file. Versions every time you tweak the bullet points so you don't lose the line that landed the last interview. Markdown source means git-able CV history, which is a quietly excellent way to track a career.
Legal Brief
For: Lawyers, paralegals, legal-adjacent writers, policy analysts
Sample use: A ten-page memorandum, a brief, or a legal opinion with numbered paragraphs and citation footnotes.
A legal brief template that respects the conventions of the genre: numbered paragraphs, footnote-first citations, conservative typography, a caption block at the head, no graphic flourish. Modeled on the US federal court brief standard and UK skeleton argument formatting. Page-numbered with running header carrying the matter short-title. Built for the moment the document leaves your desk and lands in a clerk's inbox — when the formatting has to disappear behind the argument. Not legal advice on what to file; the design that ships once you've decided what to file.
Editorial templates
Publication-style templates. Magazine columns, newspaper mastheads, zine looseness.
Magazine
For: Independent publishers, content editors, internal-magazine teams
Sample use: A 20-page issue with feature articles, sidebars, pull quotes, and a contents page.
A magazine template that turns markdown into a publication. Two-column body, designed contents page, accent-coloured section openers, drop caps, pull quotes typeset into the page rather than boxed, image-with-caption blocks. Modeled on the design language of independent print magazines — the publications that still get printed because they reward being held. Suitable for a monthly internal-comms magazine, a community newsletter shipped as a designed issue, or an indie publication. The point is the artefact: a PDF that reads as an issue, not a document.
Newspaper
For: Editors of newsletters and community papers, comms shops, satire writers
Sample use: A four-page broadsheet front page with a masthead, lead story, and column layout.
A newspaper template that channels the broadsheet vocabulary — masthead, dateline, column rules, condensed display type for headlines, body in a tight, dense column. The document doesn't pretend to be a real newspaper; it borrows the typographic discipline of the genre to produce a designed PDF that reads as a paper. Suitable for an internal company newsletter that wants to feel substantial, a community paper assembled from markdown, or a satirical front page for a launch. Surprisingly fun to write into once you stop trying to fight the columns.
Zine
For: Indie writers, designers, community publishers, artists
Sample use: A 12-page zine with mixed type, asymmetric layout, and a hand-bound feel.
A zine template that leans the other way from the rest of the library — looser type, asymmetric layout, room for personality. The opposite of corporate. Designed for the writers who like their print artefacts to feel made by hand, the kind that get folded and stapled at home. Markdown lets you focus on the writing; the template carries the visual identity. Suitable for personal projects, indie publications, conference handouts, and anything else where the document is the point and the polish should feel deliberate, not corporate.
One source, many outputs
The discipline that makes the library work is that the source file stays markdown. The same .mdfile can run through any of the fifteen templates without rewriting a line. A draft you started as a memo can ship as a whitepaper. A résumé you wrote in plain markdown can be exported through three sub-styles to find the one that fits the role. A thesis chapter can preview as an editorial essay if you want to send it to a reader who isn’t your advisor.
This is the inversion that matters. In Word, the template is the document — if you want a different template you start over. In markdown plus mdclaudy, the document is the markdown, and the template is the press. Switching templates is a render, not a rewrite.
Customisation, within bounds
Each template ships with sensible defaults. Pro users can override:
- Typeface. Body and display fonts, served from a curated library or your uploaded files.
- Accent colour. The single chromatic accent each template uses for emphasis and rule lines.
- Margins. Page margins per export — useful for the documents that have a printed-edition constraint.
- Header and footer content. Document title, author, project name, version, date — whatever you want carried across the running header.
- Cover page on/off. Toggle per export. Some documents want a cover page; some want page one to be the body.
- Custom user templates. Build your own template from scratch on Pro — useful for agencies and consultants that want a house style applied everywhere.
The shape of the customisation is deliberate. You can override the chrome; you can’t override the typography decisions. The templates earn their shape because someone made an opinionated call on what each genre needs.
How to use the templates
Three steps.
- Write the document in markdown.In mdclaudy’s editor, in VS Code, in Obsidian, in any text editor. The source is plain
.md. - Pick the template. The template picker shows the fifteen options with a thumbnail; clicking a thumbnail previews the document live.
- Export. Designed PDF in one click. Optional recent-tweaks tray remembers your last three template overrides so repeat exports are a single keystroke.
For the full export route — including how mdclaudy compares to Pandoc, browser print, and the other markdown-to-PDF options — see our hub post on markdown to PDF.
When the templates aren’t the right tool
Worth saying explicitly. The fifteen templates are designed for the document-as-deliverable case — a PDF that goes to a client, reviewer, or reader. They are not the right tool for:
- Real-time collaboration on prose. Use Google Docs for the moments you need three people typing into the same paragraph.
- Print-shop output with CMYK and bleed. On our roadmap (Phase 3, Typst engine); not today.
- Interactive forms. A PDF form with fillable fields is a different artefact; use Adobe Acrobat or a form builder.
- Designed slide decks. See our note on markdown-to-presentation — slides are a different layout problem.
Frequently asked questions
Keep reading
- Markdown to PDF — the hub for every export route and the eight common methods compared.
- Markdown to Word — when you need
.docxinstead of PDF. - Markdown to Word vs PDF — choosing between the two outputs.
- The best markdown editor for writers — where to write the source.
- Why Notion’s PDF export looks bad — the problem the templates exist to solve.