German Umlaut in Title Broken

Question

Since I upgraded my release to Ubuntu 20.04 and therefore latex in the following version:

pdflatex -version
pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019/Debian)
kpathsea version 6.3.1
Copyright 2019 Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
There is NO warranty.  Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX source.
Primary author of pdfTeX: Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
Compiled with libpng 1.6.37; using libpng 1.6.37
Compiled with zlib 1.2.11; using zlib 1.2.11
Compiled with xpdf version 4.01

using german umlaut signs in titles do not work as before anymore, if listings and hyperref packages are used.

As a minimal example is:

\documentclass[12pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage[pdftitle={Ä test},
           hidelinks]{hyperref}
\title{Ä test}
\begin{document}
This is a test
\end{document}

which results in

...
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/auxhook/auxhook.sty)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/kvoptions/kvoptions.sty)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/hyperref/pd1enc.def)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/generic/intcalc/intcalc.sty)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/generic/etexcmds/etexcmds.sty)
! Argument of \def has an extra }.
<inserted text> 
                \par 
l.4421 \ProcessKeyvalOptions{Hyp}
?

When I replace Ä by AE, it works, and but if I replace Ä by {\A} like suggested e.g. in How to write “ä” and other umlauts and accented letters in bibliography? errors appear.

Is there way of savely using umlaut characters, listings and hyperref in current pdflatex?

We cannot use the version listing for anything, please post the exact error you get. — daleif, Jun 16 '20 at 12:29
Load fontenc with option [T1]? B.t.w. \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} is no more necessary, as utf8 is now the default. — Bernard, Jun 16 '20 at 12:29
@Bernard a bit strange that a missing fontenc should give that kind of error — daleif, Jun 16 '20 at 12:31
@Bernard Thanks for the hint! Using \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} solved the issue. — David Georg Reichelt, Jun 16 '20 at 12:34

egreg · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-16T12:35:10.383

2

The problem is in timing. If you load \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}, then Ä can become the correct character through expansion. However, other special characters might lead to the same issue, so this is not fully safe.

Use \hypersetup instead.

On the other hand, using the T1 encoding is recommended for German.

\documentclass[12pt]{scrartcl}
%\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} % no longer necessary
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % recommended for German
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{
  pdftitle={Ä test},
  hidelinks,
}
\title{Ä test}
\begin{document}
This is a test
\end{document}

edited Jun 16 '20 at 12:35

answered Jun 16 '20 at 12:30

egreg

1,121,712

1

It also works if fontenc is just added to the OPs example – daleif Jun 16 '20 at 12:31
@daleif Yes, but other constructions might lead to the same issue, if they don't correspond to characters in the T1 encoding. – egreg Jun 16 '20 at 12:32
1

@daleif I added a note about it. – egreg Jun 16 '20 at 12:35
what is listings doing here? Does it change some catcode? – Ulrike Fischer Jun 16 '20 at 12:36
@UlrikeFischer It was in the OP's example, I left it although it's not necessary. In the question the OP claims that interaction seems a source of the problem. – egreg Jun 16 '20 at 12:37
1

@egreg I can confirm this: it only fails for me if listings is loaded. – Ulrike Fischer Jun 16 '20 at 12:50
1

Listings prepends \def\space{ } to \try@load@fontshape and then the hyperref code fails. Why is listings doing this? – Ulrike Fischer Jun 16 '20 at 13:00
@UlrikeFischer No idea: listings does many weird things. – egreg Jun 16 '20 at 13:02

German Umlaut in Title Broken

1 Answers1