n8n-nodes-html-to-docx-via-pandoc

Convert an HTML string to a DOCX binary using a locally installed pandoc on the worker.

Installation

• Ensure pandoc is installed and available on PATH on the n8n worker host.
  • macOS: brew install pandoc
  • Ubuntu/Debian: apt-get install pandoc
  • Windows: install from https://pandoc.org/installing.html and ensure pandoc.exe is on PATH
• Install this community node package into your n8n instance according to n8n docs.

Node options

• HTML Source: Direct string or JSON field path
• Output Binary Property: name of the binary property (default data)
• File Name: output file name (default document.docx)
• Pandoc Path: path to pandoc executable (default pandoc)
• Embed Resources: include local resources with --embed-resources --standalone when supported
• Resource Paths: directories for pandoc to search for resources
• Reference DOCX Source: None | Filesystem Path | Built-in Minimal Reference
• Reference DOCX Path: path to a reference DOCX template (when Filesystem Path)
• Clean Output Mode: enable cleanup (keeps only bold/italic, preserves lists/heading styles, removes bookmarks)
• Punctuation Normalization: Off | Conservative (default Conservative)
• Sanitize via CommonMark: Roundtrip to simplify structure
• Strip Formatting Except Bold/Italic, Remove Bookmarks, Collapse Empty Runs/Paragraphs, Ensure xml:space="preserve"
• Whitespace Policy: Collapse | Preserve Breaks (matching/sanitization only)
• Normalization Profile (JSON): advanced profile to share across nodes
• Timeout: seconds to wait for pandoc
• Additional Pandoc Arguments: advanced array of extra args (tokens only)

NormalizationProfile

A JSON-serializable structure shared with the DOCX diff node.

Default:

{
  "punctuation": "conservative",
  "whitespacePolicy": "collapse",
  "collapseNBSP": true,
  "normalizeQuotes": true,
  "unicodeNormalization": "NFC"
}

Precedence:

• If Normalization Profile (JSON) is provided, its fields override defaults.
• Aggressive punctuation normalization is used for matching only and never mutates output.

Minimal DOCX constraints

When cleanup is enabled, output is sanitized to:

• Runs: retain only w:b and w:i
• Paragraph props: retain only w:pStyle and w:numPr
• Remove bookmarks
• Collapse empty runs/paragraphs (unless paragraph has pStyle/numPr)

Notes

• Requires pandoc 2.11+ for --embed-resources. The node will continue without this flag on older versions.
• For remote resources referenced by HTML, behavior may vary by pandoc setup. Prefer embedding or ensuring resources are available locally.

Development

• Node >= 20.15
• Install deps: npm ci
• Build: npm run build
• Dev compile: npm run dev
• Lint: npm run lint
• Tests:
  • Unit: npm run test:unit
  • Integration: npm run test:integration (requires pandoc installed)

License

MIT