I replaced these lines in the intermediate latex file generated by pandoc:

`\ifnum 0\ifxetex 1\fi\ifluatex 1\fi=0 % if pdftex
  \usepackage[shorthands=off,
main=french]{babel}
\else
  % load polyglossia as late as possible as it *could* call bidi if RTL 
lang (e.g. Hebrew or Arabic)
  \usepackage{polyglossia}
  \setmainlanguage[]{french}
\fi`

by…

`\usepackage[french]{babel}`

… and that took care of the problem.

So it looks like it's either a bug in the panglossia package or misuse 
thereof by pandoc?

Not sure where to go from there since I don't understand what the if/else & 
conditionals are meant to do.

Thanks,

CJ

On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 2:18:30 PM UTC-5, Chris Jones wrote:
>
> Searched online for similar cases and didn't find anything relevant.
>
> The context is that I recently was made aware that the French insist that 
> a *thin space* be inserted immediately before some punctuation characters 
> *',:!?»%*' etc.… So in dialogs for instance e.g. … the .md source has: « 
> · bonjour mademoiselle · » where the middle dots represent a single U+202f 
> non-breaking space.
>
> When I take a look at the intermediate .tex file that pandoc generates the 
> thin spaces are correctly converted to '\,' which I believe is the *latex 
> way *of coding thin spaces. But when I run xelatex on the latex file and 
> look at the resulting PDF I can see that the thin spaces have become 
> regular-width spaces. 
>
> I compared the PDF output to another PDF I had created using plain latex 
> rather than pandoc and the U+202F's that I typed in my .tex source clearly 
> materialize as thin spaces in the PDF.  
>
> What I suspect at this point is that one of the latex packages that pandoc 
> sticks in the generated latex file (or the way it is invoked? perhaps a 
> combination of packages? …?) is causing this.
>
> As to an *MWE*… I'm not sure it's really appropriate in this particular 
> case…
>
> *Just in case… here's what I get from a minimal .md input file:*
>
> `\PassOptionsToPackage{unicode=true}{hyperref} % options for packages 
> loaded elsewhere
> \PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url}
> %
> \documentclass[oneside,10pt,french,]{extbook} % cjns1989 - 27112019 - 
> added the oneside option: so that the text doesn't jump left & right when 
> reading on a tablet/ereader
> \usepackage{lmodern}
> \usepackage{amssymb,amsmath}
> \usepackage{ifxetex,ifluatex}
> \usepackage{fixltx2e} % provides \textsubscript
> \ifnum 0\ifxetex 1\fi\ifluatex 1\fi=0 % if pdftex
>   \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
>   \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
>   \usepackage{textcomp} % provides euro and other symbols
> \else % if luatex or xelatex
>   \usepackage{unicode-math}
>   \defaultfontfeatures{Ligatures=TeX,Scale=MatchLowercase}
> %   \setmainfont[]{EBGaramond-Regular}
>     \setmainfont[Numbers={OldStyle,Proportional}]{EBGaramond-Regular}      
> % cjns1989 - 20191129 - old style numbers 
> \fi
> % use upquote if available, for straight quotes in verbatim environments
> \IfFileExists{upquote.sty}{\usepackage{upquote}}{}
> % use microtype if available
> \IfFileExists{microtype.sty}{%
> \usepackage[]{microtype}
> \UseMicrotypeSet[protrusion]{basicmath} % disable protrusion for tt fonts
> }{}
> \usepackage{hyperref}
> \hypersetup{
>             pdftitle={WME},
>             pdfborder={0 0 0},
>             breaklinks=true}
> \urlstyle{same}  % don't use monospace font for urls
> \usepackage[papersize={3.75 in, 6.0 in},left=.3 in,right=.3 in]{geometry}
> \setlength{\emergencystretch}{3em}  % prevent overfull lines
> \providecommand{\tightlist}{%
>   \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}}
> \setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}
> % Redefines (sub)paragraphs to behave more like sections
> \ifx\paragraph\undefined\else
> \let\oldparagraph\paragraph
> \renewcommand{\paragraph}[1]{\oldparagraph{#1}\mbox{}}
> \fi
> \ifx\subparagraph\undefined\else
> \let\oldsubparagraph\subparagraph
> \renewcommand{\subparagraph}[1]{\oldsubparagraph{#1}\mbox{}}
> \fi
> % set default figure placement to htbp
> \makeatletter
> \def\fps@figure{htbp}
> \makeatother
>
> \ifnum 0\ifxetex 1\fi\ifluatex 1\fi=0 % if pdftex
>   \usepackage[shorthands=off,main=french]{babel}
> \else
>   % load polyglossia as late as possible as it *could* call bidi if RTL 
> lang (e.g. Hebrew or Arabic)
>   \usepackage{polyglossia}
>   \setmainlanguage[]{french}
> \fi
>
> \title{WME}
> \date{}
>
> \begin{document}
> \maketitle
>
> \$ ECM
>
> \hypertarget{wme-title}{%
> \chapter{WME (title)}\label{wme-title}}
>
> en lettres capitales, soigneusement imprimées au pochoir\,:
>
> --- «\,Crétins\,!\,» murmura-t-il.
>
> \end{document}`
>
> *Customization* is minimal: old style numbers (proportional) and 
> one-sided since the document is not destined for hard-copy printing…
>
> What I have in mind at this point to try and figure out what is happening 
> is to work with a one line .md source that has some U+202F's and remove 
> default packages until the problem goes away but before I do this I thought 
> maybe someone has run into something similar or might suggest a better 
> approach than plain trial and error to help determine the cause of the 
> problem.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
>
> CJ
>
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "pandoc-discuss" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pandoc-discuss+unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/158fd0ac-89bc-4fb1-9920-386bf325dad6%40googlegroups.com.