abstract-section

Filter that ensures that "Abstract" sections are handled as expected.

Abstract in a dedicated section

This filter allows to write a document abstract as normal sections in the main text. It moves any section titled "abstract" from the main text into the metadata. Most output format templates expect the abstract to be given as part of the metadata, but writing body text is easier and more natural.

# Abstract

Place abstract here.

Multiple paragraphs are possible.

Without this filter, the abstract would need to be placed in the document's metadata. The additional indentation and formatting requirements in YAML headers are frequently perceived as confusing or annoying, especially when writing longer texts.

---
abstract: |
  Place abstract here.

  Multiple paragraphs are possible.
---

This filter modifies the document such that the abstract section behaves as if it was passed as metadata. It does so by looking for a top-level header whose ID is abstract. Pandoc auto-creates IDs based on header contents, so a header titled Abstract will satisfy this condition.^[1]

[1]: This requires the auto_identifier extension. It is enabled by default.

The abstract can be placed anywhere in the document.

The filter assumes that the abstract runs up until the next heading or horizontal rule, whichever comes first. Thus the abstract can be placed at the beginning of a document whose text doesn't start with a heading:

# Abstract

The abstract text includes this.

* * * *

This text is the beginning of the document.

Usage

The filter modifies the internal document representation; it can be used with many publishing systems that are based on pandoc.

Plain pandoc

Pass the filter to pandoc via the --lua-filter (or -L) command line option.

pandoc --lua-filter abstract-section.lua ...

Quarto

Users of Quarto can install this filter as an extension with

quarto install extension pandoc-ext/abstract-section

and use it by adding abstract-section to the filters entry in their YAML header.

---
filters:
  - abstract-section
---

R Markdown

Use pandoc_args to invoke the filter. See the R Markdown Cookbook for details.

---
output:
  word_document:
    pandoc_args: ['--lua-filter=abstract-section.lua']
---

Multiple abstracts

It is common for certain works to include two abstracts, one in English and one in the local language of an academic institution. E.g., theses published at many German universities must have a German "Zusammenfassung" in addition to the English "Abstract".

The filter can be configured to support those additional abstract-like sections as well. The identifiers of the sections must be listed in the section-identifiers field below the abstract-section metadata entry. E.g.:

---
abstract-section:
  section-identifiers:
    - abstract
    - sammanfattning
---

This will place the Abstract in the abstract variable as before, but will also collect the contents of a Sammanfattning section and place it in the sammanfattning field, where it can be used for further processing, e.g., with a custom template.

License

This pandoc Lua filter is published under the MIT license, see file LICENSE for details.