Shortcode in Latex inline math doesn't get rendered

[MBe-iUS]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

Hi,

when I use a shortcode in inline math I get an hexcode in the produced PDF.

Funnily, the hexcode can partially be converted to the shortcode...

The question is: Should shortcode in inline math work?

Thanks (as always)!

Steps to reproduce

---
title: Untitled
format:
  pdf: 
    keep-tex: true
author: me
date: last-modified
five: 5
---

$5 + {{< meta five >}}$

Actual behavior

The above example renders to Latex:

\[ 5 + b58fc729-690b-4000-b19f-365a4093b2ff;7B7B3C206D6574612066697665203E7D7D; \]

The 7B7B3C206D6574612066697665203E7D7D translates just to {{< meta five >}} in a hexcode editor.

Expected behavior

It should render to \[ 5 + 5 \].

Your environment

• OS: Mac OS Tahoe 26.3.1

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.9.35
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/becker/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.8.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      Deno version 2.4.5: OK
      Typst version 0.14.2: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.9.35
      Path: /Applications/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2026.03.02
      VeraPDF: 1.28.2
      Chromium: (not installed)
      Chrome Headless Shell: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /Users/becker/Library/TinyTeX/bin/universal-darwin
      Version: 2026

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Chrome:  (not detected)

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[mcanouil]

The issue is not specific to LaTeX and the workaround is pretty simple.

---
title: "Quarto Playground"
format: html
---

${{< meta title >}}$

$ {{< meta title >}} $

This is the same issue as reported in:

• Strange number in documentation #13913

The above issue was partially fixed it seems.

[MBe-iUS]

Which leads to \$ 5 \$ instead of \(5\). The whitespace seems to matter somehow.

[MBe-iUS]

Some analysis with DeepWiki revealed that

quarto-cli/src/resources/pandoc/datadir/readqmd.lua

Lines 185 to 208 in 64a2120

	local doc = pandoc.read(txt or "", flavor, opts):walk {
	CodeBlock = function (cb)
	cb.classes = cb.classes:map(restore_invalid_tags)
	cb.text = cb.text:gsub(uuid_pattern, hex_to_string)
	cb.text = unescape_invalid_tags(cb.text, tags)
	return cb
	end,
	Code = unshortcode_text,
	RawInline = unshortcode_text,
	RawBlock = unshortcode_text,
	Header = filter_attrs,
	Span = filter_attrs,
	Div = filter_attrs,
	Link = function (l)
	l = filter_attrs(l)
	l.target = l.target:gsub(uuid_pattern, hex_to_string)
	return l
	end,
	Image = function (i)
	i = filter_attrs(i)
	-- Replace UUID-encoded shortcodes in i.src
	i.src = i.src:gsub(uuid_pattern, hex_to_string)
	return i
	end,

could be missing an handler for Math elements.

When I added that in my local quarto-cli install like:

Link = function (l)
      l = filter_attrs(l)
      l.target = l.target:gsub(uuid_pattern, hex_to_string)
      return l
    end,
    Image = function (i)
      i = filter_attrs(i)
      -- Replace UUID-encoded shortcodes in i.src
      i.src = i.src:gsub(uuid_pattern, hex_to_string)
      return i
    end,
    Math = unshortcode_text,

the meta shortcode worked. The issue is with my custom shortcode that does emit a tex-RawInline. This would need to be converted to a Str down the road (probably there

quarto-cli/src/resources/filters/customnodes/shortcodes.lua

Lines 325 to 332 in 64a2120

	doc = _quarto.ast.walk(doc, {
	Shortcode = inline_handler,
	RawInline = code_handler,
	Image = function(el)
	el = attr_handler(el)
	el.src = apply_code_shortcode(el.src)
	return el
	end,

).

Before trying a PR I would like to ask the opinion of the Quarto team.

[mcanouil]

To add to this, here is another case of the same pattern:

---
format: html
glyph: "💻"
---

```{.python filename='{{< meta glyph >}}'}
def fibonacci(n: int) -> int:
    """Calculate the nth Fibonacci number."""
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2)
```