\uppercase in \newcommand

Question

I tried to use \uppercase in \newcommand:

\newcommand\universidad{My University}
\newcommand\Universidad{\uppercase{\universidad}}

When I use it I get this,

My University

and not, as expected, this

MY UNIVERSITY

Why?

EDIT

I can't use \MakeUppercase because I need use latin quote, example: ingeniería. And this latin case has problems with \MakeUppercase

egreg · Answer 1 · 2015-09-30T13:58:35.067

With both latin1 and utf8 encodings I get correct output from

\newcommand{\facultad}{Ingeniería}
\newcommand{\Facultad}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{\facultad}}
\Facultad

The problem with your definition is that \uppercase acts on the token list \universidad and doesn't do nothing, because at that level there's no letter to be uppercased; \universidad is expanded only later. With \expandafter we perform the expansion before \MakeUppercase comes into action.

Just as an exercise, here is a macro \Capitalize that takes as argument a control sequence and defines its "uppercase variant"

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\Capitalize}[1]{%
  \edef\@tempa{\expandafter\@gobble\string#1}%
  \edef\@tempb{\expandafter\@car\@tempa\@nil}%
  \edef\@tempa{\expandafter\@cdr\@tempa\@nil}%
  \uppercase\expandafter{\expandafter\def\expandafter\@tempb\expandafter{\@tempb}}%
  \@namedef{\@tempb\@tempa}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{#1}}}
\makeatother

After this magic code you can say

\newcommand\universidad{Universidad de Lugar}
\newcommand{\facultad}{Ingeniería}

\Capitalize{\universidad}
\Capitalize{\facultad}

will define also \Universidad and \Facultad that will print "UNIVERSIDAD DE LUGAR" and "INGENIERÍA".

Note that \MakeUppercase does not go along with hyperref, so in case you use these commands where this package extracts something for building bookmarks you should give it a safe token list; for example

\newcommand{\Facultad}{%
   \texorpdfstring{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{\facultad}}%
      {\facultad}}

and, in the automatic defining command, change the line

\@namedef{\@tempb\@tempa}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{#1}}}

into

\@namedef{\@tempb\@tempa}{%
  \texorpdfstring{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{#1}}{#1}}}

In case one's using utf8x, the definitions must be preceded by \PrerenderUnicode:

\PrerenderUnicode{Ingeniería}
\newcommand{\facultad}{Ingeniería}
\newcommand{\Facultad}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{\facultad}}

The \Capitalize macro could be

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\Capitalize}[1]{%
  \@ifpackagewith{inputenc}{utf8x}{\PrerenderUnicode{#1}}{}%
  \edef\@tempa{\expandafter\@gobble\string#1}%
  \edef\@tempb{\expandafter\@car\@tempa\@nil}%
  \edef\@tempa{\expandafter\@cdr\@tempa\@nil}%
  \uppercase\expandafter{\expandafter\def\expandafter\@tempb\expandafter{\@tempb}}%
  \@namedef{\@tempb\@tempa}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{#1}}}
\makeatother

so that \PrerenderUnicode is performed automatically when needed.

@JuanPablo Please, edit your question to show the problem. Where do you get it? — egreg, Nov 21 '11 at 23:05
What happens if I whant to use xelatex or lualatex. Can I use the PrerenderUnicode? — TeXtnik, Sep 30 '15 at 10:55
@TeXtnik You don't use inputenc with those engines to begin with. — egreg, Sep 30 '15 at 10:58
Sorry @egreg, I was to edit the comment with more explanation. Using the first version of Capitalize does not output anything with XeLaTeX. — TeXtnik, Sep 30 '15 at 12:35
@TeXtnik I have no problem with `\documentclass{article} \usepackage{fontspec} \newcommand{\facultad}{Ingeniería} \newcommand{\Facultad}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase\expandafter{\facultad}}
\begin{document} \Facultad \end{document}` — egreg, Sep 30 '15 at 12:38
You are right with your example, but \Capitalize does not output anything in my system. — TeXtnik, Sep 30 '15 at 12:46
@TeXtnik Of course, it doesn't make sense with XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, with which you mustn't load inputenc. — egreg, Sep 30 '15 at 13:26

score 22 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 01 '22 at 02:08

22

You need to use \MakeUppercase instead of \uppercase. For information on the difference, see Case-changing oddities from the TeX FAQ.

For ligatures like í, you can either escape the character using \'{i}, or use it as-is with

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

in your document preamble. This should accommodate the use of ligatures in your input.

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
  \verb!\MakeUppercase{ingeniería}!: & \MakeUppercase{ingeniería} \\
  \verb!\MakeUppercase{ingenier\'{i}a}!: & \MakeUppercase{ingenier\'{i}a}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

edited Oct 01 '22 at 02:08

barbara beeton

88,848

answered Nov 21 '11 at 21:18

Werner

603,163

I use quote,example Ingeniería and have problems with MakeUppercase – JuanPablo Nov 21 '11 at 21:21
If you escape the ligature í as \'i and use \MakeUppercase{Ingenier\'{i}a} you obtain the correct result. – Werner Nov 21 '11 at 21:23
2

Just to nit-pick a bit: I don't think 〈í〉 can be considered a ligature, which would be a combination of two glyphs/graphemes, e.g. 〈æ〉. 〈í〉 is simply an accented character/glyph/letter/grapheme. – doncherry Nov 21 '11 at 21:38

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 09 '22 at 15:59

6

In my case, this article really helped:

https://texfaq.org/FAQ-casechange

I use:

\usepackage[overload]{textcase}
(...)
\newcommand{\iemph}[1]{\MakeTextUppercase{#1}}
(...)
\begin{document}
XXX \iemph{abc def ghi}

edited Jun 09 '22 at 15:59

barbara beeton

88,848

answered Oct 08 '12 at 22:51

Grzegorz Wierzowiecki

7,959

This works only for ASCII (basic latin) symbols. – Artem Pelenitsyn Jun 05 '18 at 08:02

\uppercase in \newcommand

EDIT

3 Answers3

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