# Pandoc refuses to parse math latex

I have a markdown file like:

blah blah $|\left<R_j^{(x)},g_j^{(x)}\right>|$ blah


I tried to use Pandoc to convert this file into a .docx file, but it cannot recognise the math expression surrounded by dollar sign '$'. The math content appears in the output .docx file as raw (or verbatim) text. However, the another file that contains a different math expression, like: blah blah$\min _{ \omega _{ j }^{ (x) } } \left\| x-\sum _{ j=0 }^{ p-1 }{\omega^{(x)}_j g_{ d\gamma _{ d }j }^{ (x) } }  \right\|$ was handled well by Pandoc. Is it because that I've done something wrong in my first markdown file? Or it is just a bug in Pandoc? How can I avoid it? My Pandocversion is: pandoc 1.17.1 Compiled with texmath 0.8.6.3, highlighting-kate 0.6.2. ## 1 Answer Instead of <...> as the delimiters, you need to use \langle...\rangle: blah blah$|\left\langle R_j^{(x)},g_j^{(x)}\right\rangle|\$ blah

• The use of \left...\right in the example doesn't seem needed at all. – Werner Jun 11 '16 at 5:30
• To avoid future confusion that I may encounter, would you please explain the difference between < ... > pair and \langle ... \rangle? because i created those expressions by using an online equation generation tool, and at that time everything seems good. BTW. thanks for your answering and modification. – wangkaibule Jun 11 '16 at 7:04
• I've did some research then, this tex post mentioned the \left<...\right> pair, however it cannot be used in pandoc. – wangkaibule Jun 11 '16 at 7:30
• @wangkaibule: Fundamentally TeX is different from Word in many respects, period. However, "[b]ecause Pandoc’s intermediate representation of a document is less expressive than many of the formats it converts between, one should not expect perfect conversions between every format and every other." Perhaps one could file a feature request to automatically change \left<...\right> into \left\langle...\right\rangle for conversion-to-Word purposes. – Werner Jun 11 '16 at 12:05