Re: Converting German Umlauts to LaTeX

[Daniel Rubin <daniel@warum-ada.de>]

Christian Herenz wrote:

> Hello,
> I am totally new to this eMail-List, so I hope this question does not 
> seem dumb, or so..
> 
> I write my LaTeX documents usually in emacs, that works very fine at my 
> personal computer. Since I am german, I use the UTF-8 encoding. I load 
> the package for UTF-8 encoding in TeX simply with 
> /usepackage[utf-8]{inputenc}, which really improves typing a lot (I am 
> german, so I use frequently umlauts and the szlig).
> 
> However, at the computer-terminals in our institute, they do not support 
> UTF-8. LaTeX gives me an error-message, that [utf-8] is not supported by 
> inputenc.
> 
> My idea was to convert the document into an UTF-8 free file. So that all 
> occurences of umlauts will be converted into the LaTeX equivalent (e.g. 
> ö to "o), and I could also compile the file on the debain-boxes at our 
> instiute.
> 
> I think that this could be achived with a few lines of code, but I am 
> somewhat new to customize emacs with elisp (havent done anything yet), 
> so could you please give me a hint or point me where to look.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Christian from Germany

Hi Christian,

it *might* be as easy as fetching the file `utf8.def' from a ctan 
server and putting it in your personal `texmf' dir (say, 
`~/texmf') to teach LaTeX UTF-8.

As for the conversion of your files, I have no better idea than 
some replace-string sessions.  There is a tool called `recode', 
but I have no experience with it.

Also, have a look at `Input Methods' in the Emacs info manual.

Hope this is of some use, have fun
----Daniel



-- 
Daniel Rubin
daniel warum-ada de