[tex4ht] Issue with superscripts in titles with htlatex and biblatex

[Danny Baillie]

Hi all,

"Orphan" superscripts (e.g. $^{87}$) in titles of journal articles are incorrectly displayed as subscripts with htlatex using biblatex. Orphan superscripts are common for mass numbers in chemical formulae. If there is also an orphan subscript (e.g. $_{37}^{87}$ for an atomic number) then they are both shown as subscripts. This doesn't bother me at all, but I thought you might like to know. Here is a MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{biblatex}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
  @article{ref, Title = {A {$^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$} Bose condensate}}
\end{filecontents}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\begin{document}
  A $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ Bose condensate \cite{ref}.
\printbibliography 
\end{document} 

Using htlatex (no options) the superscript in the document text is raised fine, but the superscript in the bibliography is shown as a subscript. Using ${}^{87}$ makes no difference. The pdf using latex and the html with htlatex and bibtex work fine. So the combination for this issue is: htlatex and biblatex and orphan superscript in article title.

Best wishes,
Danny Baillie

On 25/01/2013, at 12:02 AM, Danny Baillie <danny.baillie at otago.ac.nz>
 wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I've noticed the following issue and would welcome comment.
> 
> If I use pdflatex or latex+dvipdf on the following example, the link in the .pdf is correctly directed to http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1888:
> 
>    \documentclass{article}
>    \usepackage{filecontents}
>    \begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
>      @article{ref, Archiveprefix = {arXiv}, Eprint = {1205.1888}}
>    \end{filecontents}
>    \usepackage[eprint]{biblatex}
>    \bibliography{\jobname}
>    \usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
>    \begin{document}
>      \nocite{ref}
>      \printbibliography 
>    \end{document} 
> 
> If I use htlatex on the same example (no htlatex options), the link in the .html is to 1205.1888 with no prefix (i.e. it incorrectly points to the current directory). The relevant part of the .html is (I've removed an unimportant span):
> 
>   arXiv: <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1888" ><a href="1205.1888" >1205.1888</a></a>
> 
> so, htlatex knows about the right url, but it's putting an incorrect one "on top".
> 
> If I use similar code with bibtex (\usepackage{natbib} and \bibliographystyle{apsrev4-1}) then the .html from htlatex correctly points to http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1888 and the .html is then correctly (note also the position of the "arXiv:" label): 
> 
>    <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1888" >arXiv:1205.1888</a>
> 
> Normal journal links (not arXiv) are working fine in htlatex using either biblatex or bibtex.
> 
> To reiterate, in order to have this problem the combination must be htlatex and biblatex and arXiv. All other combinations seem to be OK. 
> 
> I've just done a tlmgr update and my versions are tex4ht.c (2010-12-16-08:39 kpathsea) and t4ht.c (2010-12-16-08:47 kpathsea).
> 
> Thanks,
> Danny Baillie
>