extension latex_macros substitutes macros except for PDF meta data

[hendriktews]

Hi,

I believe this is a bug, but I am not sure, therefore I am posting here.

When i process

\newcommand{\name}{A}

---
title: Document \name
---

Document \name.

with pandoc a.md -o a.pdf with pandoc version 3.1.11.1 I get a PDF document that shows Document A twice. However, the PDF meta data only contains Document as title, without A. One can see the effect also when translating to LaTeX with -t latex --standalone. One can get the substitution in the meta data by using a custom template, which has pdftitle={$title$}, instead of pdftitle={$title-meta$},

Is it a feature that all LaTeX macros are replaced by an empty string in title-meta, when this is derived from title?

[jgm]

PDF metadata can't contain LaTeX commands, so when we encounter a RawInline "latex", we strip it out.
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/blob/main/src/Text/Pandoc/Writers/LaTeX.hs#L187-L188
stringify is what is getting rid of the RawInline "latex" element.
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/blob/main/src/Text/Pandoc/Shared.hs#L364-L375

Now, you might say, "A" is not a command, it's just regular text. But it's still in a RawInline "latex" element. Perhaps stringify could be taught to make some fine distinctions, but it's the kind of thing that could have unexpected consequences.

I'd suggest using a different approach, e.g. a Lua filter and a span with a class.

[hendriktews]

OK, thanks for the quick answer, so it is a feature. Is this documented somewhere already? If not, may I suggest to add a line, maybe to the documentation of the raw_text extension?