17

The aim is to generate the .pdf with accented characters (the .tex file has mixed macro and unicode input), in a way that the .pdf text can be copy-pasted.

An example:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{tgpagella}

\begin{document}

Unicode input: ā ī ū ṃ ṅ ñ

Macro input: \=a \={\i} \=u \d{m} \.n \~n

\end{document}

Compiling with pdflatex, the above will visually produce the desired characters, but when you select and copy-paste them from the .pdf, you get

Unicode input: a  ̄ u m n ñ
 ̄ı ̄ .  ̇
Macro input: a  ̄ u m n ñ

Edit:
Ulrike's answer explains what pdflatex is doing here.

Community
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Gambhiro
  • 3,384

3 Answers3

11

pdflatex doesn't use "unicode compounds". You are using T1-encoding and for the accented chars not available in this encoding pdflatex use various methods to build them. E.g the dot below the m is actually a small tabular with the m in the first row and a dot in the second:

\DeclareTextCommand{\d}{T1}[1]
   {\hmode@bgroup
    \o@lign{\relax#1\crcr\hidewidth\ltx@sh@ft{-1ex}.\hidewidth}\egroup}

In theory you can get correct glyphs with pdflatex (if your font contains them). In practice it would mean a lot work. Better use xelatex or lualatex.

Ulrike Fischer
  • 327,261
  • With XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX, use, accordingly, \usepackage[EU1]{fontenc} and \usepackage[EU2]{fontenc}, or just load fontspec. – Andrey Vihrov Jul 03 '11 at 17:04
  • Thanks, I didn't realize that. I removed the latter part of the question accordingly. I see that I'll need to update lualatex to work with fontspec. – Gambhiro Jul 03 '11 at 17:43
6

Try adding \usepackage{cmap}. Or switch to xelatex/lualatex.

Martin Schröder
  • 15,156
  • Thanks! There should be a phrase on this site for the "yet another latex package I didn't know about" feeling. – Gambhiro Jul 06 '11 at 16:08
  • Did "cmap" work for anybody? It's been 11 years (to the day!), and I still can't copy extended latin characters properly using pdftex =) I guess it's time to switch to XeTeX for good. – Nikolaj Š. Jul 06 '22 at 11:18
  • According to cmap's documentation, it only works if the character is already in the specified encoding, so this solution is useless in this case where ṃ isn't even included in T1 encoding. – user202729 Dec 21 '23 at 09:03
4

This is the path to victory:

  1. Install TeX Live 2010 which has a luatex and fontspec version that work together. Follow the instructions on tug.org.

  2. On Linux, don't forget to update the $PATH! If you already have TeX Live installed with your package manager, give the new path priority over the old one. For example, at the end of ~/.bashrc, put PATH=/usr/local/texlive/2010/bin/i386-linux:$PATH; export PATH

  3. Log out and back in (or just open a new terminal) so that your $PATH updates.

Save this test to test.tex somewhere, and compile with
lualatex --interaction=nonstopmode test.tex

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{TeX Gyre Pagella}

\begin{document}

Unicode input: ā ī ū ṃ ṅ ñ

Macro input: \=a \={\i} \=u \d{m} \.n \~n

\end{document}

Open the resulting test.pdf, and when you copy-paste from it, you get

Unicode input: ā ī ū ṃ ṅ ñ
Macro input: ā ī ū ṃ ṅ ñ

Nice!

Gambhiro
  • 3,384