PanDoc: How to assign level-one Atx-style header (markdown) to the contents of html title tag -

i using pandoc convert large number of markdown (.md) files html. i'm using following windows command-line:

for %%i in (*.md) pandoc -f markdown -s %%~ni.md > html/%%~ni.html 

on test run, html looks ok, except title tag - it's empty. here example of beginning of .md file:

#topic title - [anchor 1](#anchor1) - [anchor 2](#anchor2) <a name="anchor1"></a> ## anchor 1 

is there way can tell pandoc parse the

#topic title 

so that, in html output files, get:

<title>topic title</title> 

?

there other .md tags i'd parse, , think solving me solve rest of it.

i don't believe pandoc supports out-of-the-box. relevant part of pandoc documentation states:

templates may contain variables. variable names sequences of alphanumerics, -, , _, starting letter. variable name surrounded $ signs replaced value. example, string $title$ in

<title>$title$</title> 

will replaced document title.

it continues:

some variables set automatically pandoc. these vary depending on output format, include metadata fields (such title, author, , date) following:

and proceeds list bunch of variables (none of relevant question). however, above quote indicates title variable metadata field. metadata field can defined in pandoc_title_block, yaml_metadata_block, or passed in command line option.

the docs note that:

... may keep metadata in separate yaml file , pass pandoc argument, along markdown files ...

so have couple options:

1. edit each document add metadata defining title each document (this possibly scripted).
2. write script extract title (perhaps regex looks #header in first line) , passes in pandoc command line option.

if intend start including metadata in new documents create going forward, first option way go. run script once batch edit documents , done. however, if have no intention of adding metadata documents, consider second option. running loop, title before calling pandoc within loop (although i'm not sure how in windows script).