Add an Option to Preserve Unicode-math Characters

[ZhuangQu]

With the popularity of Unicode, more and more languages support native Unicode-math characters, without the need for conversion.

For LaTeX, the following code is OK,

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\begin{document}
$α → ∞$
\end{document}

without the need for converting α → ∞ to \alpha \rightarrow \infty.
For Typst, $α → ∞$ is also OK, without the need for converting to $alpha arrow.r oo$.
For Markdown, $α → ∞$ is also OK.

I suggest adding an option to leave the Unicode-math characters as they are.

[jgm]

I'm not sure what conversions you're talking about, exactly. For example, going markdown -> latex does not mess with these characters:

% pandoc -t latex
$α → ∞$
^D
\(α → ∞\)

Neither does latex -> markdown.

[ZhuangQu]

It's my fault not to say converting from A.docx.

[jgm]

Adding an option to prefer the Unicode characters to the TeX commands in TeX output would require:

• a change to the jgm/texmath library, adding a parameter that controls this
• a change to pandoc, adding and documenting a new option that controls this

It's a fair amount of work for a gain that's only aesthetic. In addition, keep in mind that pandoc strives to produce TeX output that can be processed by either pdflatex or lualatex/xelatex; using Unicode characters would make compiling with pdflatex impossible, I think.

[ZhuangQu]

You have a point. I close it.