Bug parsing \@ in LaTeX

[dan-reznik]

Using "pandoc main.tex -o main.docx" on the .tex below, we identify
two potential deviations from a latex-generated PDF:

a) a footnote following a right-to-left string (e.g., hebrew) appears
correctly on its right side on the PDF and incorrectly on its left
side on the .docx
b) when an abbreviation such as "It." is followed by "\@ ", e.g.,
"It.\@ ", so as to avoid a long space after the period, in the PDF it
behaves correctly, however, in the .docx that space is omitted.
Currently one can "~" use "It.\@~next" as a workaround, which is not
TeX practice.

Cheers

\documentclass[letter]{article}
\title{Right-To-Left Footnote problem}
\author{}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{FreeSerif}
\setsansfont{FreeSans}
\setmonofont{FreeMono}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage[variant=american]{english}
\setotherlanguages{hebrew}
\newfontfamily\hebrewfont[Script=Hebrew]{Hadasim CLM}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

Two Pandoc bugs in going from \texttt{.tex} to \texttt{.docx}:

\begin{itemize}
\item A footnote on a right-to-left string, e.g.,
\texthebrew{טוֹב}\footnote{A footnote.} appears incorrectly on the
left side of the string.
\item After an abbreviated such as It.\@ hello you don't get a space
after the period. It works if I use a tilde after the abbreviated
word. E.g., It.\@~hello.
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

[jgm]

Could you split this into two separate bug reports, with descriptive titles for each? That would really help us to keep track of these issues.

[jgm]

I'm not really sure we can do anything about \@. We need to convert the LaTeX into a Pandoc AST, and there is nothing in the AST that could really represent \@. (We could parse it as raw LaTeX, I suppose, but this would only be passed through to LaTeX output, and if you already have a LaTeX file then I don't see why you'd be using pandoc to convert it to a PDF.)

[jgm]

Clarification: we seem to parse the whole control sequence \@ plus any following spaces as an empty string, and I guess that's what's problematic.

In LaTeX a\@b\@ c will look like ab c. In pandoc it will come out as abc.

[jgm]

I've rebranded this issue around the second issue (should have a fix soon). Please submit a new issue about the footnote.

[dan-reznik]

I've rebranded this issue around the second issue (should have a fix soon). Please submit a new issue about the footnote.

I just resubmitted the other bug as a separate issue, thanks