CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ms-wordlatexpandocfile-conversion
Tom
Tom

Reputation: 21

Pandoc: Prevent conversion of special characters in LaTeX

I am converting a MS Word-document (.docx) with Pandoc to LaTeX (.tex). The .docx-file contains backslashes and brackets which Pandoc converts to the corresponding LaTeX-commands (e.g. \textbackslash) what I do not want.

How can I prevent Pandoc from converting special characters?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1326

Answers (1)

mb21
mb21

Reputation: 39219

I think pandoc is actually doing what you want. You cannot have plain backslashes in LaTeX since they would be interpreted as commands, so instead you have to use \textbackslash{}, which is the command to print a simple plain backslash in LaTeX. Try generating a PDF with LaTeX and you'll see what I mean.

If you actually want to include LaTeX commands in your Word file, I think that's not possible. (How would pandoc know whether the word user wanted to write a backslash or a LaTeX command?) However, you can transform your word doc to markdown, adjust it (in pandoc markdown you actually can include raw TeX), then export it to LaTeX.

pandoc input.docx -o file.md
# edit file.md now
pandoc file.md -o output.tex

For a more automated solution, you could look into pandoc filters. Then it's up to you how to solve the ambiguity of backslashes...

Upvotes: 1

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