Error Undefined control sequence when converting markdown to PDF

[yilas]

Hello 👋🏻

ℹ️ I have just opened an issue to mermaid-filter (issue 134) but it might actually be a pandoc issue rather than a mermaid-filter one. Just in case, I'm posting the same issue here as well.

The issue

When trying to convert a markdown file with Mermaid content to PDF using the mermaid-filter project, I encountered the following error :

Error producing PDF.
! Undefined control sequence.
<argument> „den éischte Kontakt'' (\(\color 
                                               {red}{\textsf {formell}}\))
l.64 ...uxe9ischte-kontakt-colorredtextsfformell}}

It seems that the problem is related to the following part of the markdown file :

($\color{red}{\textsf{formell}}$)

When I remove that section, the PDF is generated correctly.

Example of problematic file

Here is the markdown file that produces the error (test.md) :

# Dialog

## „den éischte Kontakt” ($\color{red}{\textsf{formell}}$)

And here is a modified version that works (test_ok.md) :

# Dialog

## „den éischte Kontakt”

Step to reproduce

1. Create a markdown file (test.md)

2. Run the following command

   pandoc -F mermaid-filter -o output.pdf test.md

3. Observe the error

   Error producing PDF.
   ! Undefined control sequence.
   <argument> „den éischte Kontakt'' (\(\color 
                                                  {red}{\textsf {formell}}\))
   l.64 ...uxe9ischte-kontakt-colorredtextsfformell}}

Environnement

• Operating system

cat /etc/os-release 
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="20.04.6 LTS (Focal Fossa)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS"

• Pandoc version

$ pandoc --version
pandoc 2.5
Compiled with pandoc-types 1.17.5.4, texmath 0.11.2.2, skylighting 0.7.7
Default user data directory: /home/codespace/.pandoc
Copyright (C) 2006-2018 John MacFarlane
Web:  http://pandoc.org
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is no warranty, not even for merchantability or fitness
for a particular purpose.

• mermaid-filter version

$ npm view mermaid-filter version
1.4.7

Expected behavior

The file should be converted to PDF without errors.

[bpj]

You need to have the math inside the argument to the \color command, not the other way around. Note that the $math$ syntax can't be used for arbitrary raw LaTeX commands; I suspect you want the raw markup syntax: see my answer to #10278.