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Renders a Markdown documentation set into a print-quality PDF book in the Inside Macintosh visual style, with a cover, a table of contents with page numbers, chapter openers, running heads, labeled callouts, Mermaid figures, and appendixes. Use when asked to produce a PDF guide, manual, or book from Markdown, or to package documentation written with the imac-* skills as a printable deliverable.
Render the guide as a book
Write the content with the other imac-* skills first. This skill only turns finished Markdown into a paginated PDF.
Set up a book directory
Copy assets/ from this skill into a new directory, for example my-guide/:
my-guide/
book.json { "title": "Inside Acme: Widgets" }
package.json marked, mermaid, pagedjs, puppeteer-core
build.mjs Markdown → HTML → Paged.js → PDF
style.css page geometry and typography
src/ one Markdown file per chapter, built in filename orderThen install the dependencies and build:
npm install
npm run build # writes "<title>.pdf" and build/book.htmlThe build drives a locally installed Google Chrome with puppeteer-core. Set CHROME_PATH if Chrome is somewhere other than /Applications/Google Chrome.app. Mermaid and Paged.js load from node_modules, so no network access is needed after install.
Add node_modules/ and build/ to .gitignore.
Source conventions
| Construct | Write | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Cover | <div class="cover"> containing cover-kicker, cover-title, cover-sub, and cover-meta divs | Full-bleed dark cover page |
| Table of contents | <div class="toc-page">, ## Contents, and <nav id="toc"></nav> | Generated from H1 and H2 headings, with page numbers |
| Chapter | # Title | New page, "Chapter N" label, rule, running head |
| Unnumbered front matter | # Preface {.unnumbered} | Chapter opener without a number |
| Appendix | # Glossary {.appendix} | "Appendix A", "Appendix B", and so on |
| Section | ## Heading, ### Heading | Ruled sans-serif section heads |
| Callout | > [!NOTE], > [!IMPORTANT], > [!WARNING], followed by > lines | Labeled, left-ruled box |
| Figure | A paragraph starting **Figure N-M: Caption.** directly followed by a `mermaid block | Captioned figure that is kept on one page |
| Code | Fenced code block with a language | Monospaced block with a left rule |
| Tables | GFM tables | Ruled tables. Rows are not split across pages. |
Number figures by chapter (Figure 3-2) in the text itself. Write captions that state the lesson, not just the topic.
Layout decisions
- The trim size is 7.5 × 9.25 in, with mirrored margins and a wider inside margin, as in the 1990s series.
- Body text is Palatino. Headings, tables, and running heads are Helvetica Neue. Code is Menlo.
- Page numbers are on the outside edge. The running head shows the chapter label on the left and the chapter title on the right, and is hidden on chapter-opening pages.
- A chapter starts on a new page, not always a right-hand one, so the book has fewer blank pages.
Adjust style.css rather than build.mjs for visual changes. Change @page size and the margins together.
Verify the output
- Check the page count that the build prints.
- Rasterize a few pages (
pdftoppm -r 60 -png book.pdf pages/p) and inspect the cover, the table of contents, one chapter opener, one figure, and one page with a wide table. - Confirm that no figure is separated from its caption, that the table of contents shows page numbers, and that no Mermaid block rendered as raw text. Raw text means a syntax error: check the build output for
pageerror.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Build hangs, then times out | A Mermaid syntax error stopped rendering | Fix the diagram. Quote labels that contain () or :. |
| A chapter title sits alone on a page | A CSS page: property on the chapter opener forces a break | Do not assign named pages to openers |
| Figure too small | A wide left-to-right layout was scaled down to the page width | Use flowchart TB, or split the diagram |
| Table of contents missing page numbers | Headings lack IDs, or the TOC markup changed | Keep the <nav id="toc"></nav> placeholder |
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