Re: Org-mode latex pdf export issue: Underlined lines not breaking properly

[Gustavo Barros <gusbrs.2016@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

On Fri, Jun 14 2013, Nicolas Goaziou wrote:

>>>> Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>   1. Does \underline{中文测试} work properly (notwithstanding the line
>>>>>      breaks)?
>>>>
>>>> \underline can show chinese, but the command can't resolve lines
>>>> breaking properly.
>>>>
>>>>>   2. Does \uline from "ulem" package handle it correctly, including the
>>>>>      line breaks?
>>>>
>>>> \uline seem to work properly.
>>>
>>> Then, the best solution seems to add "ulem" package to
>>> `org-latex-default-packages-alist' and use \ulem for underline. "soul"
>>> will only be used for strike-through.
>>>
>>> Is there any objection to this change?
>>
>> May be \ulem should be used for strike-through too!
>
> Done.
>

I know this is a very old thread, and that perhaps this boat has sailed
definitely.

But it seems to me that the attempt to use soul back then eventually
backfired because soul does not handle utf8 properly, as Feng Shu’s
issue demonstrated.  Indeed it does not.  But there is a patch to soul,
by Heiko Oberdiek, to handle this precise issue, and it is the package
soulutf8.

I’ve checked the commit history around the time of this thread, and it
seems soul, rather than soulutf8, was the attempt
(https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode/commit/95eeefa9bca1b6c57fe62c248a0a35302cd7374d).

Neither soul nor ulem is very active nowadays, but are used quite
extensively, as far as I know (from following TeX.SX).  And both have
their limitations.  But the ability to have line breaks is a clear edge
of soul, and the reason of the original request which started this
thread.

So, if the only reason to prefer ulem back in 2013 was utf8 support,
perhaps soulutf8 might be worthy of your reconsideration.


Best regards,
Gustavo Barros.