edit: The ./ is essential once you’re in the directory when you’re running stuff this way. It essentially means “in this directory, run …”. Otherwise the shell will just look in your $PATH directories list and not find “pandoc” anywhere in it. You can add “.” to your $PATH to avoid this but it’s not there by default on the deck.

This was the issue, I am fairly comfortable with the command line there are just lots of little things that were never explained to me because I have learned it all myself.

I appreciate the recommendation for a front end engine! I want pandoc for exporting org files to document/website formats from org mode in emacs so I don't need a front end but I will definitely check it out!

I actually think I still need to add pandoc to the $PATH directory so emacs can run it though.