Org-mode reader does not pass \nbsp to html

[slitvinov]

With this file (nbsp.org):

\nbsp

I get

pandoc -t json -f org nbsp.org

[{"unMeta":{}},[{"t":"Para","c":[{"t":"RawInline","c":["latex","\\nbsp"]}]}]]

and \nbsp is missing in html output

pandoc -t html -f org def.org
<p></p>

This is a relevant section of org-mode manual.
http://orgmode.org/manual/Special-symbols.html

A list of special entities in org-mode with LaTeX, HTML, and ASCII
replacements.

[jgm]

@tarleb, can you comment?

[tarleb]

Hi @slitvinov! Thanks for the report. The Org reader, in its current state, tries to parse word starting with a backslash \ as LaTeX – this handles most of what Emacs org-mode has to offer in terms of special symbols. The \nbsp symbol is a bastardization of HTMLs   and is therfor not supported (yet).

You can work around this by using LaTeX syntax to input a non-breaking space: \ (backslash space) should do what you want.

As a side note / fun fact: Pandoc's LaTeX support is more complete than Emacs', giving Pandoc users more power at handling special symbols and LaTeX code: E.g. Converting \emph{Hello} to HTML will produce emphasized text in Pandoc, but remains a plain string when doing the same in Emacs. Also, rare symbols like \amalg (∐) or \doteq (≐) are not supported in Emacs.

[jgm]

I'm not sure, but it seemed from the original report and linked web page
that org-mode has some special latex-ish codes that are meant to have
latex-independent meanings -- e.g., \nbsp should convert to any
format as a non-breaking space. Is this right, @slitvinov? If so,
maybe the org reader could use a lookup table to handle at least some
of these properly.

+++ Albert Krewinkel [Oct 20 14 10:16 ]:

Hi @slitvinov! Thanks for the report. The Org reader, in its current state, tries to parse word starting with a backslash \ as LaTeX – this handles most of what Emacs org-mode has to offer in terms of special symbols. The \nbsp symbol is a bastardization of HTMLs   and is therfor not supported (yet).

You can work around this by using LaTeX syntax to input a non-breaking space: \ (backslash space) should do what you want.

As a side note / fun fact: Pandoc's LaTeX support is more complete than Emacs', giving Pandoc users more power at handling special symbols and LaTeX code: E.g. Converting \emph{Hello} to HTML will produce emphasized text in Pandoc, but remains a plain string when doing the same in Emacs. Also, rare symbols like \amalg (∐) or \doteq (≐) are not supported in Emacs.

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#1657 (comment)

[tarleb]

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my answer. This is a bug in the org reader, and I actually started working on a fix.