How can I compile LaTeX in UTF8?

Question

I did my document in an ISO-standard. It does not support umlaut alphabets, such as ä and ö. I need them. The document gets compiled without UTF8, but not with UTF8. More precisely, the document does not get compiled with the line at the beginning of my main.tex:

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

How can I compile my LaTeX document in UTF8?

score 111 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 10 '09 at 03:42

111

I'm not sure whether I got your problem but maybe it helps if you store the source using a UTF-8 encoding.

I'm also using \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} in my LaTeX sources and by storing the files as UTF-8 files everything works just peachy.

answered Aug 10 '09 at 03:42

Uwe Honekamp

2,478
1
17
15

Can you give a command to change the settings of the files to UTF-8? How can I even see my current settings? – Léo Léopold Hertz 준영 Aug 10 '09 at 04:08
2

This depends on your editor, it should be able to store files in UTF-8. Please check the applicable preference settings. On my Mac, provides me with a combo box that lets me settle the encoding in the file dialog. – Uwe Honekamp Aug 10 '09 at 04:20

score 21 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 12 '13 at 23:41

21

Save your file in UTF8 format.

Verify the file format using the following (UNIX) command:

file -bi filename.tex

You should see:

text/x-tex; charset=utf-8

Convert the file using iconv if it is not UTF8:

iconv --from-code=ISO-8859-1 --to-code=UTF-8 filename.txt > filename-utf.txt

edited Aug 12 '13 at 23:41

Dave Jarvis

30,436
41
178
315

answered Aug 10 '09 at 03:38

Mark Elliot

75,278
22
140
160

1

This is a short-term solution: Uwe Honekamp's solution makes life easier, as it allows one to directly type accented letters instead of using less legible LaTeX commands. – Eric O. Lebigot Feb 09 '11 at 14:35
3

it is `file -I` on el capitan it seems – nicolas Apr 24 '16 at 15:51
`file filename.tex` worked for me (mojave) – Oskar Limka May 07 '19 at 21:34
Suppose we have no `file` command. What exactly should be inside a file? – Dims Dec 20 '21 at 20:16

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '10 at 17:59

16

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} will not work for a bibliographic entry such as this:

@ARTICLE{Hardy2007,
author = {Ibn Taymiyyah, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al{-}Halīm},
title = {Naqḍ al{-}manṭiq},
shorttitle = {Naqḍ al-manṭiq},
editor = {Ḥamzah, Aḥmad},
publisher = {Maktabat a{l-}Sunnah},
address = {Cairo},
year = {1970},
sortname = {IbnTaymiyyaNaqdalmantiq},
keywords = { Logic, Medieval}}

For this entry use \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}

answered Nov 19 '10 at 17:59

D W

2,979
4
34
45

This solves problems with characters from other languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese), as shown in your example. More reading: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/13067/utf8x-vs-utf8-inputenc – caw Dec 02 '14 at 01:55
I came across this answer by mistake and it solved me a long-standing problem with em-dash and accented letters in the PDF's sidebar table of contents. – Oskar Limka May 07 '19 at 21:38

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 12 '09 at 16:12

Convert your document to utf8. LaTeX just reads your text as it is. If you want to use the utf8 input encoding, your document has to be encoded in utf8. This can usually be set by the editor. There is also the program iconv that is useful for converting files from iso encodings to utf.

In the end, you'll have to use an editor that is capable of supporting utf. (I have no idea about the status of utf support on windows, but any reasonable editor on linux should be fine).

iconv --from-code=ISO-8859-1 --to-code=UTF-8 iso.txt > utf.txt — Johan, Sep 07 '09 at 10:01

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 16 '12 at 21:24

0

I have success with using the Chrome addon "Sharelatex". This online editor has great compability with most latex files, but it somewhat lacks configuration possibilities. www.sharelatex.com

edited Oct 16 '12 at 21:24

Christian Hayter

30,581
6
72
99

answered Oct 16 '12 at 21:21

Magne Myhren

9
1

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 19 '10 at 18:06

0

You needed to iconv your source.

That said, the T_EX-based compiler invoked by latex doesn't really support variable-length encodings; it needs big libraries that tell it that certain bytes go together. Xelatex is Unicode-aware and works much better.

answered Nov 19 '10 at 18:06

Tobu

24,771
4
91
98

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered May 21 '11 at 09:46

I use LEd Editor with special "Filter" feature. It replaces \"{o} with ö and vice versa in its own editor, while maintaining original \"{o} in tex files. This makes text easily readable when viewed in LEd Editor and there is no need for special packages. It works with bibliography files too.

How can I compile LaTeX in UTF8?

7 Answers7

Linked