Disabling underscore-to-subscript in Emacs Org-Mode export

Question

When I export to PDF via org-mode (C-c C-e d), any words with underscores end up being partially converted to subscript. How can I prevent this from happening?

I found this article on the subject:

Disabling Underscore subscript in Emacs Tex Mode

However, I either wasn't able to figure out the correct elisp or it simply didn't work. Note, I don't want to change any global font options. I only want this fix to apply to tex/latex/org-mode.

I also found this post, though it didn't work either:

disable subscript superscript raise/lower?

`org-toggle-pretty-entities` for ppl where subscripts are annoying (or desired) directly inside an org doc (not related to OPs question about exporting though, just, this was a top google hit and figured I'd contribute). — Josh.F, Aug 06 '19 at 06:43

score 106 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 13 '14 at 04:56

106

You can disable super/subscripting within an org file by adding the following line:

#+OPTIONS: ^:nil

Check the org manual for more options.
The following command inserts a template containing all the options: C-c C-e #

edited Aug 13 '14 at 04:56

MostlyHarmless

445
2
11
21

answered Mar 30 '09 at 19:59

35

you can also have '^:{}' this will still allow you to have subscript if you use curly braces, i.e. my_var won't give you subscript but F_{t} will. See also the org-mode manual: http://orgmode.org/manual/Export-options.html#Export-options – danielpoe Mar 31 '09 at 07:46
There are some other options not on the C-c C-e t template: #+OPTIONS: author:nil email:nil creator:nil timestamp:nil – johntait.org Mar 07 '13 at 14:53
2

Is this supposed to work in Org v.8+? It seems to have stopped working after I upgraded. – Brian Z Feb 25 '15 at 04:46
Corrected link from @danielpoe: http://orgmode.org/manual/Export-settings.html#Export-settings – ChrisFreeman Jun 28 '16 at 00:21
@danielpoe Your link is broken. – Refael Sheinker Jun 09 '23 at 04:10

score 38 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 31 '09 at 14:22

38

I was able to solve the issue by setting the following variable:

(setq org-export-with-sub-superscripts nil)

answered Mar 31 '09 at 14:22

zpinter

2,232
2
23
29

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 29 '13 at 08:31

8

I think this would be easier: http://orgmode.org/manual/Subscripts-and-superscripts.html Escape the underscore with a backslash:

enter image description here

Now, escape the _:

enter image description here

You can see this in action here: http://www.railsonmaui.com/blog/2013/04/27/octopress-setup-with-github-and-org-mode/

answered Apr 29 '13 at 08:31

justingordon

12,553
12
72
116

Sorry for offtopic, but what color scheme do you use? I quite like it. – Daniil May 05 '13 at 09:31
zenburn -- awesome. Use package-list-packages. It's a bit like railscasts. – justingordon May 05 '13 at 18:34
4

thanks! And comments must be at least 15 characters in length. – Daniil May 08 '13 at 14:02
6

This doesn't seem to work for me in org 8.2.10, whether I'm publishing to HTML or to LaTeX/PDF. I get a backslash in the output, plus subscript text. – Ken Williams Aug 04 '15 at 21:28
1

this doesn't seem to work when publishing to html. using org 8.2.10m same behavior as @KenWilliams noted – ealfonso Apr 11 '16 at 23:15
For submitting org bug reports follow instructions at http://orgmode.org/manual/Feedback.html. – DavidS Jul 20 '16 at 22:45
@KenWilliams did you ever find a solution for publishing underscores to HTML? – Riley Finn Jan 02 '20 at 20:11

score 6 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 05 '18 at 17:45

6

Use \under (Documentation on The Org Manual: Special symbols)

For example:

text\under{}text

edited Dec 05 '18 at 17:45

ryanyuyu

6,366
10
48
53

answered Dec 05 '18 at 16:35

Babak

61
1
1

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 31 '09 at 05:15

5

Do you want to prevent subscripts in the onscreen display of the source file or in the text of the output PDF? If the latter, then you want

\usepackage{underscore}

It won't break the use of underscores in maths mode, either.

answered Mar 31 '09 at 05:15

Will Robertson

62,540
32
99
117

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 15 '12 at 10:12

4

For individual cases, insert a literal underscore this way:

text text one\textunderscore{}two text

answered Mar 15 '12 at 10:12

Robbie Morrison

159
2
4

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 13 '18 at 20:56

0

In my case any word that contains an underscore is likely to be a variable name or something similar. I just surround it with = or ~ so that it's treated as such. Then it will be exported accordingly.

answered Jun 13 '18 at 20:56

xji

7,341
4
40
61

Disabling underscore-to-subscript in Emacs Org-Mode export

7 Answers7

Linked