How to change emphasis commands in pandoc's LaTeX template?

Question

I want to change the default strong emphasis command in the conversion from pandoc's markdown to LaTeX, say, from \textbf to \textsc. Since running pandoc in the source file prints into the .tex file \textbf, I think it has nothing to do with the chosen template (unless the latter redefines \textbf, but that doesn't seem like a good option). I wish to tell pandoc to convert its strong emphasis into a \strong LaTeX command that I can define in the LaTeX template.

Answer 1

A query on the Pandoc discussion list yielded a couple of nice responses, from Andrea Rossato and John MacFarlane (developer of Pandoc). Below I give John's answer. This assumes you have the Haskell Platform installed.

1. Assume this is your Pandoc file, myexample.md

   A *simple* pandoc example with **strong emphasis**!
   

2. The following Haskell program exploits Pandoc's scripting interface

   -- strongify.hs
   -- compile as 'ghc --make strongify.hs'
   
   import Text.Pandoc
   
   main = toJsonFilter makeItStrong
      where makeItStrong (Strong xs) = [latex "\\strong{"] ++ xs ++ [latex "}"]
            makeItStrong x           = [x]
            latex                    = RawInline "latex" 
   

3. Compile the program:

   ghc --make strongify.hs
   

4. You can then use the generated executable as so:

   pandoc -t json myexample.md | ./strongify | pandoc -f json -t latex
   

5. The output of step 4 is:

   A \emph{simple} pandoc example with \strong{strong emphasis}!    
   

John MacFarlane makes the following point:

"...the advantage of this approach over postprocessing the output with sed or perl: "\textbf" in verbatim environments won't be touched."