Cmake Pdf — Minimal

No external scripts, no complicated add_custom_command chaining – just one call to pdflatex . Example 2: Minimal PDF from Markdown (using Pandoc) When your source is Markdown and you want a PDF via LaTeX:

add_custom_target(pdf DEPENDS $PDF_OUTPUT) Sometimes you want the PDF content to reflect CMake variables (e.g., version number). With minimal CMake, you can generate a .tex or .md file first: minimal cmake pdf

set(MD_SOURCE $CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR/manual.md) set(PDF_OUTPUT $CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR/manual.pdf) No external scripts

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.15) project(Manual) find_program(PANDOC pandoc REQUIRED) find_package(LATEX REQUIRED) # for pdflatex engine version number). With minimal CMake

The pattern is ideal for documentation that lives alongside code, where you want a simple, cross‑platform way to say “build the PDF if you have the tools” – no extra scripting, no fragile pipelines, just CMake doing what it does best: finding executables and running them.