Greek description for custom variables (\newkomavar*) in lco-file

Question

Based on the templates/files asymTypB.lco, brieftemplate.tex, briefwbk.tex found at http://www.komascript.de/files/KOMA-Script-3-Buch-Beispielcode.zip, I derived a modified template for an invoice (initially as posted at https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/152558/8272).

Attempting to translate this into Greek (available at https://github.com/NikosAlexandris/invoice_el), I've added the following instructions, as per KOMA's guide recommendations:

\AtBeginDocument{%

\providecaptionname{greek}{\datename}{Ημερομηνία}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\subjectname{Θέμα}%

\providecaptionname{greek}\headtoname{Προς}%

\providecaptionname{greek}{\customername}{Πελάτης (Κωδικός, Αριθμός)}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\yourmailname{Εγγραφή Πελάτη}%
\providecaptionname{greek}{\yourrefname}{Διακριτικός τίτλος έργου}%

\providecaptionname{greek}\headfromname{Από}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\emailname{η-Ταχυδρομείο}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\wwwname{Url}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\phonename{Τηλέφωνο}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\faxname{Τηλεομοιότυπο}%

\providecaptionname{greek}{\myrefname}{Εσωτερική εγγραφή}%
\providecaptionname{greek}{\invoicename}{Τιμολόγιο No.}%
\providecaptionname{greek}{\bankname}{Τραπεζικός Λογαριασμός}%

\providecaptionname{greek}\ccname{cc}%
\providecaptionname{greek}\enclname{Επισυναπτόμενα}%

\providecaptionname{greek}\pagename{Σελίδα}%
}

In addition, I added new variables in the respective .lco file as explaiend in (this) KOMA's script guide (english version, page 371), a new variable accepts a pre-defined description, i.e.: newkomavar*[description ]{name }. For example,

% New variable(s) here!
\newkomavar{company}%
\newkomavar{professiona}%
\newkomavar{professionb}%
\newkomavar{fromvatin}%
\newkomavar{fromlinkedin}%

So far is all fine. However, adding a greek description for a custom variable, won't work as expected. To exemplify, the following

\newkomavar*[ΑΦΜ Πελάτη]{yourvatin}%

appears in the compiled pdf (PDFLaTeX) as ὐἇὐᾔὐῂ ὐήὐᾡὐὢὐῇὓᾲὐᾣ. How should a greek description for custom koma variables be realised (inside PDFLaTeX) from inside an .lco file?

Answer 1

Your example files seem to use UTF-8 encoding. The sequence of UTF-8 hex codes from the individual letters of "ΑΦΜΠελάτη" is ce91 cea6 ce9c cea0 ceb5 cebb ceac cf84 ceb7 (note: space was removed).

I am not familiar with the intricate details of Greek font encodings in LaTeX, but the table of the LGR encoding in the LaTeX font encodings manual maps the bytes of the UTF-8 sequence (ce, 91, ce, a6, ...) to the wrong output you are seeing.

A new example

As I am not able to compile your example document, I must demonstrate the issue and proposed solutions with minimal examples of my own.

First, the problem occurs when no inputenc has been defined:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage[LGR]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
ΑΦΜ Πελάτη
\end{document}

The problem can be solved by:

A. defining a suitable input encoding

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage[LGR]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\begin{document}
ΑΦΜ Πελάτη
\end{document}

or

B. using character codes found in the LGR table. The mapping from "ΑΦΜΠελάτη" to decimal codes is 65, 70, 77, 80, 101, 108, 136, 116, 104.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage[LGR]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
\char65\char70\char77{} \char80\char101\char108\char136\char116\char104
\end{document}

Both A and B give the same result:

Applying this to the original example

I guess the character code solution (B) would work as such. For the input encoding solution to work, I think you would need to move the \inputenc declaration to an earlier location in your document, before any Greek text. Note that in your example the .lco template containing \newkomavar*[ΑΦΜ Πελάτη]{yourvatin} is included straight from \documentclass, before the declaration of an \inputenc.