! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char ́ (U+301)(inputenc)

Question

I get this error message, during compiling my .tex-document.

line 234 - ! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char ́ (U+301)(inputenc) not set up for use with LaTeX.See the inputenc package documentation for explanation.Type H <return> for immediate help.... \cleardoublepage

I am writing my thesis right now and I am very confused about this error message, since it seems to be connected to a special character, which I do not use in my manuscript. The solution up to now was the reloading of an older version of my manuscript...after some hours of work and after several times of successful compiling this error suddenly occurs again. I don't get it why, since I just write some text, add some figures and nothing more...

any suggestions, how I can solve that issue? I have no idea, what kind of MWE I should post here :( where does this comment "line234" refer to. Line 234 is normal text in my manuscript...

Check out the comments on this question here. There might be something in there that could solve your issue. In particular using \'e for accented characters. — Flexo013, Jul 24 '18 at 13:31
I kind of solved the problem for now by using
\DeclareUnicodeCharacter{0301}{'{e}}

before \begin{document}. Well, I am happy about it, but I am still not understand, what the actual problem was. Why do I have to declare some unicode and some not??? — Marius Knapp, Jul 24 '18 at 13:48
@MariusKnapp That's wrong: U+0301 is a combining character; if you have the combination U+0065 U+0301, your definition would produce eé. — egreg, Jul 24 '18 at 15:02
Experienced this problem with \'{\i} in a .bib file compiled with biblatex. Problem solved by using \'{i} instead, which is strange because the backslash in front of the i used to be recommended. Anyhow the i prints correctly that way. — PatrickT, Mar 31 '21 at 12:45
We should really pick one of these questions to be the canonical question we redirect dupes to. — Davislor, Jan 28 '22 at 00:52
I had problem with \'{i} too. Changing in the bib file was not enough for me. I had to go in the bbl file and change there also! The bbl file had composed characters. I changed only ı́ — Cyriac Antony, Jun 14 '22 at 13:32

score 88 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 25 '19 at 13:47

88

I do this:

\DeclareUnicodeCharacter{0301}{*************************************}

and look into the pdf which char produces this and delete/correct it.

answered Apr 25 '19 at 13:47

Felix

981

8

Excellent method to locate the culprit! :) – Denis Bitouzé Feb 10 '20 at 19:54
Works like a charm! – felice Feb 26 '20 at 10:28
I don't understand what the asterisks represent? The entire LaTeX source code? – Tom Jun 12 '20 at 15:02
5

The line of asterisks is just here so you can easily find in the resulting pdf where is annoying unicode char... but you can use whatever char you want ;-). – Felix Jun 15 '20 at 07:45
This is awesome – Jako Jul 27 '20 at 16:56
6

i would give more upvotes if i could! – yoshi Nov 30 '20 at 20:57
1

I just tried to upvote this only to realise I already did, many years ago! – Sterls Feb 08 '21 at 22:44
4

@Tom, you stick this line of code in your preamble, compile, and then visually inspect the PDF for a line of stars. That's where the problem is. You go back to the source file and retype the offending characters. You can replace the stars by any other visually identifiable set of characters. – PatrickT Mar 31 '21 at 12:33
6

Very useful especially when the problem is in bibliography entries! – Pincopallino Apr 01 '21 at 09:00
Fantastic solution. It just solved a prolem for me in the bibliography, where the unicode character was not in the source, but created by biber from \'{\i} instead of \'i – Frédéric Grosshans Dec 09 '21 at 18:43
This should be an accepted answer somewhere, really useful! – aaragon Jul 29 '22 at 11:48

egreg · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-24T15:15:12.360

22

If you copy/paste some source, it may happen that é had been coded as

U+0065 U+0301

which in Unicode aware environments is rendered as expected. Unfortunately pdflatex is not Unicode aware and cannot deal with combining characters, which are placed after the character they refer to.

The only method that gives correct results is to change the combination into the non composed character.

Doing \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{0301}{\'{e}} is wrong. Here's an example:

\documentclass{article}

\DeclareUnicodeCharacter{0301}{\'{e}}

\begin{document}

é % non composed character U+00E9
é % composed character U+0065 U+0301
ú % composed character U+0075 U+0301

\end{document}

You're removing the error message, but the output is completely off.

_{Note Copying from the above will not show the precomposed characters, because either my OS or this site does normalization.}

edited Jul 24 '18 at 15:15

answered Jul 24 '18 at 15:09

egreg

1,121,712

2

@MariusKnapp Find the offending characters and retype the correct ones. – egreg Jul 25 '18 at 08:38
1

Use xelatex to complie and works fine. – zack Nov 26 '19 at 17:31
By "change the combination into the non composed character," could you write how you do that in the LaTeX code, instead of just mentioning what you should not do? – StrawberryFieldsForever Oct 24 '23 at 10:51
@StrawberryFieldsForever Search and replace with your favorite editor. – egreg Oct 24 '23 at 11:46
lol. I of course meant, what do you mean by "non composed character"? – StrawberryFieldsForever Oct 24 '23 at 15:25
1

@StrawberryFieldsForever Replace e+combining accent into é. – egreg Oct 24 '23 at 16:14
Ah, I see! Thanks! – StrawberryFieldsForever Oct 24 '23 at 16:28

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 29 '20 at 18:01

7

I had a very similar problem:

Error: Unicode char ́ (U+0301)(inputenc) not set up for use with LaTeX...;

It seems the problem was not in my main text but in my .bib file instead. I had a citation in the line in which my compilation said I had the mistake, and after checking this reference inside the .bib file, I found that it had several accented vowels in curly brackets. I changed the vowel in curly brackets by the corresponding "normal accented" vowel (I mean, with the vowel accented using my keyboard) and the problem went away.

edited Oct 29 '20 at 18:01

naphaneal

2,614

answered Nov 27 '19 at 16:19

eric

81

Why was this downvoted? I had the exact same issue and your approach worked for me. Thank you! – Hagbard Oct 29 '20 at 15:00
Same issue here; your fix worked. Thank you! – LunkRat Jan 13 '22 at 21:50
Also you might need to delete all auxiliary/temporary files when dealing with error in .bib files. I had the same error, but it persisted even after deleting all non-ascii characters from .bib file. The accented vowel was still in present in .aux file, which was not recreated for some reason. I recommend deleting every file except .tex and .bib files, than recompiling. (mentioning this for anyone googling the same issue like me) – herdek550 Mar 23 '24 at 18:56

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 19 '20 at 13:23

4

As others have already said, the issue is the accented characters, likely in the .bib file. Replace the culprit characters there with the corresponding latex-appropriate e.g. \'{i}.

answered Oct 19 '20 at 13:23

Dim

43
3

Davislor · Answer 5 · 2020-10-29T19:29:57.340

1

Either compile in LuaLaTeX/XeLaTeX, or normalize your source file to NFC form. PDFTeX chokes on combining characters, but your accented character most likely has a canonical precomposed form that inputenc can handle.

You might be able to do this with iconv -f utf8-mac -t utf8, or here is a little program I wrote that does it.

edited Oct 29 '20 at 19:29

answered Oct 29 '20 at 19:23

Davislor

44,045

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 28 '22 at 00:16

As a rough workaround, you can use this:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\DeclareUnicodeCharacter{0301}{\hspace{-1ex}'{ }}
\begin{document}
chaŕ cha'r
\Huge
chaŕ cha'r
charŔ cha'R
\end{document}

However, the workaround is indeed rather rough (look at the left R):

Fredy Gabriel Ramírez V. · Answer 7 · 2019-08-26T01:27:28.763

-2

Compiling with XeTeX works for me, maybe because it works better with unicode.

Here a found some clarifications.

edited Aug 26 '19 at 01:27

answered Aug 25 '19 at 21:37

Fredy Gabriel Ramírez V.

9

Welcome to TeX.SE! Please do not use a link to an external page, describe in your own words what you think is the solution here. From the accepted answer changing the engine seems not to be a solution here for the OP ... – Mensch Aug 25 '19 at 22:22
Ok, thanks for your help. I edited my answer following your advice. – Fredy Gabriel Ramírez V. Aug 26 '19 at 01:31

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char ́ (U+301)(inputenc)

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