R – Package inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8 in RStudio

knitrmarkdownpdfrrstudio

In RStudio, when i go for convert my Markdown file to PDF then it gives me the error:

output file: report.knit.md

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8: not set up for use with LaTeX.

See the inputenc package documentation for explanation.
Type H for immediate help.

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Try running pandoc with –latex-engine=xelatex.
pandoc.exe: Error producing PDF from TeX source
Error: pandoc document conversion failed with error 43
In addition: Warning message:
running command '"C:/Program Files/RStudio/bin/pandoc/pandoc" +RTS -K512m -RTS report.utf8.md –to latex –from markdown+autolink_bare_uris+ascii_identifiers+tex_math_single_backslash-implicit_figures –output report.pdf –template "C:\Users\USER\Documents\R\win-library\3.2\rmarkdown\rmd\latex\default.tex" –highlight-style tango –latex-engine pdflatex –variable "geometry:margin=1in"' had status 43
Execution halted

My R version (Windows 7):

R version 3.2.1 (2015-06-18) -- "World-Famous Astronaut"
Copyright (C) 2015 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

Best Answer

Given the almost identical error message, I tried following @scoa's suggestion, but putting that line in the YAML header did not change the error, so for whatever reason, Knitr wasn't looking there to determine the LaTex engine. However, next to the "Knit PDF" button in the control bar is a settings menu that allows you to specify the LaTex ending in the "Advanced" pane. This solved the problem for me. It produces a slight variation on the suggestion above, modifying the YAML header thus:

  output:
     pdf_document:
         latex_engine: xelatex

I can see that @scoa may have assumed the YAML output was already formatted this way, but what I was missing was the colon after 'pdf_document'. Using the settings dialogue created the proper syntax in the header.

RStudio version 0.99.896, knitr version 1.12.3.

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