Abstract has no title when converting markdown to docx

[joezhouchenye]

Describe your proposed improvement and the problem it solves.

Add a similarly option like reference-section-title to abstract section.

Here's the result that I would like to have.

[jgm]

I made it use a localized term for "Abstract" (will depend on lang). We could add the ability to override this using abstract-title if necessary, but maybe the localized term is enough?

[joezhouchenye]

What I mean is to add the "Abstract" title to the output .docx document.

Anyway, I use a VBA macro as a workaround:

Sub AbstractTitle()
    Dim i As Integer
    
    i = 0
    
    For Each para In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
        i = i + 1
        If para.Style = "Abstract" Then
            ActiveDocument.Paragraphs.Add Range:=para.Range
            ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(i).Range.Text = "Abstract" & vbCr
            ActiveDocument.Paragraphs(i).Style = wdStyleHeading1
            Exit For
        End If
    Next
End Sub

From the Pandoc User's guide abstract-title is "title of abstract, currently used only in HTML and EPUB".

I have tried HTML output, but no abstract part is shown in the generated HTML file.

For latex, abstract-title doesn't work as well.

A workaround to use custom abstract title for latex is:

header-includes:
  \renewcommand{\abstractname}{My Very Own Summary}

So far, I couldn't say this is a completed feature.

[jgm]

What I mean is to add the "Abstract" title to the output .docx document.

Yes, and that's exactly what it does now! (with this commit)

[jgm]

abstract-title could be implemented for docx and latex, if there's a reason to. (That is, if people really need the title of the abstract to be something different from "Abstract" as localized to their language.) But this would be better made a separate issue.

[zero0n3]

Hello, could you add ad example in the documentation on how to use it? Because i'm trying but without success. Thanks

[joezhouchenye]

Have you updated pandoc to the latest version? It does add "Abstract" now, but the added "Abstract" has the same style as the abstract content which is not desired. I want the abstract title to be bolded and center-aligned, so a macro in Word is still needed. It would be better to make abstract title the style of heading 1, just the same as the reference title.

[zero0n3]

yes I did the update and in fact now it adds Abstract to me at the beginning.
I usually use md to docx conversion.
In the files, at the top, I have this header (later used with the yaml_metadata_block extension)

---
lang: it-IT
abstract: "blah blah blah"
---

Meanwhile, the title "Abstract" is not translated according to the language and furthermore, even adding there, the variable
abstract-title: 'some title'
that value is not read and I still have the title "Abstract"
So where am I doing wrong?

[joezhouchenye]

abstract-title could be implemented for docx and latex, if there's a reason to. (That is, if people really need the title of the abstract to be something different from "Abstract" as localized to their language.) But this would be better made a separate issue.

As mentioned above, abstract-title will have no effect in docx and cannot be translated automatically.

[zero0n3]

abstract-title could be implemented for docx and latex, if there's a reason to. (That is, if people really need the title of the abstract to be something different from "Abstract" as localized to their language.) But this would be better made a separate issue.

As mentioned above, abstract-title will have no effect in docx and cannot be translated automatically.

OK understood. Sorry, I misunderstood then and I thought it worked, at least the version translated into the language of the document, even on docx files

[jgm]

Localization of the term "Abstract" is supposed to occur. So if it is not, it may be a bug.

[jgm]

I see the bug and I will fix it now.