[R-pkg-devel] Producing ß in help files.

[Jeffrey Dick]

On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 11:41 AM, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> On 06/01/18 16:19, Spencer Graves wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2018-01-05 20:52, Rolf Turner wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> In a help file that I am writing I wish to cite an item by a bloke whose
>>> surname is Weiß.
>>
>>
>>
>>        Write it "Weiss".
>>
>>
>>        See "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F".
>>
>>
>>        That name is written "Weiss" in Switzerland and Liechtenstein but
>> "Weiß" in Germany and Austria.  German is the official language of
>> Liechtenstein and the primary of four official languages of Switzerland.
>>
>>
>>        Standard high German has several characters that are not used in
>> English but have standard transliterations using the English latin alphabet.
>> These include "ß" = "ss", "ä" = "ae", "ö" = "oe" and "ü" = "ue".
>
>
> <SNIP>
>
> I'm sure that you're correct, but I find it frustrating not to be able to
> produce a symbol (which is readily available elsewhere --- e.g. in LaTeX or
> from the keyboard using the "compose key") under the ".Rd" system.  I'd like
> to be *able to produce it*, even if I shouldn't! :-)
>
> cheers,
>
> Rolf
>
> P. S.  It also seems to me to be polite --- if that's the way the bloke
> writes his name, then  that's the way that I ought to write it when
> referring to him.
>
> R.
>
> --
> Technical Editor ANZJS
> Department of Statistics
> University of Auckland
> Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
>
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You could define a new macro in the Rd file (untested):

\newcommand{\ss}{\ifelse{latex}{\ss}{\ifelse{html}{\out{ß}}{ss}}}

That would use "\ss" in LaTeX, "&szlig" in HTML, and "ss" in plain
text rendering.

Or, add \encoding{UTF-8} to the Rd file and ß is available in plain text:

\newcommand{\ss}{\ifelse{latex}{\ss}{\ifelse{html}{\out{ß}}{ß}}}