Including Orcid in plain latex using authblk

Question

Lets say I have the following document:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{authblk}

\usepackage{hyperref}

\begin{document}

\title{Some paper}

\author[1]{First Last}
\author[2]{Second Last}

\affil[1]{First Affil}
\affil[2]{Second Affil}

\maketitle

\end{document}

and I want to include the ORCID of one of the authors. I would like the symbol with an attached hyperlink appearing after one of the authors' names.

How would I go about this?

Note: This may seem like a duplicate of this question, in which the following approaches are suggested:

1. Use Academicons:

   \usepackage{academicons}
   \usepackage{xcolor}
   \definecolor{orcidlogocol}{HTML}{A6CE39}
   
   \newcommand{\orcid}[1]{
     \href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\textcolor{orcidlogocol}{\aiOrcid}}
   }
   

   This works, but only using xelatex and not plain (pdf)latex.

2. Using a suitable graphic (say orcid.pdf, converted from one of the svgs available:

   \usepackage{graphicx}
   
   \newcommand{\orcid}[1]{
     \href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\includegraphics[scale=1]{orcid}}
   }
   

   Note that there is a more sophisticated version which scales the icon to the height of the surrounding text using the scalerel package:

     \newcommand\orcidicon[1]{
       \href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\mbox{\scalerel{\includegraphics{orcid}}{|}}}}
   

   This unfortunately gives me the error

     ! Use of \\author doesn't match its definition.
   

Thus, both of the approaches don't really seem to work for me. Is there any way to get this working?

Answer 1

The easy way to set something to a good height relative to the current font is to use dimensions with units of ex, which is nominally the height of the lower case x in the font. So naively one would write

 \includegraphics[height=1.7ex]{orcid}

to include the image.

Unfortunately the authblk constructions need the above command to expand nicely; but it doesn't, even after adding \protection type mechanisms such as \newrobustcmd from etoolbox (try

\newrobustcmd{\orcid}[1]{%
  \href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\includegraphics[height=1.7ex]{orcid}%
  \,#1}}

and you will see a very strange effect).

A way round this is to store the graphic appropriately scaled in a box and then use that box in the affiliation.

The combination

\newbox{\myorcidaffilbox}
\sbox{\myorcidaffilbox}{\large\includegraphics[height=1.7ex]{orcid}}

sets up a box for this purpose and stores the graphic in it; the size \large is the font size that is used for printing affiliations. Then we can write a command

\newcommand{\orcidaffil}[1]{%
  \href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\usebox{\myorcidaffilbox}\,#1}}

that puts this box in to our orcid construct via a \usebox command.

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{authblk}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\newbox{\myorcidaffilbox}
\sbox{\myorcidaffilbox}{\large\includegraphics[height=1.7ex]{orcid}}
\newcommand{\orcidaffil}[1]{%
  \href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\usebox{\myorcidaffilbox}\,#1}}

\begin{document}

\title{Some paper}

\author[1]{First Last}
\author[2]{Second Last}

\affil[1]{First Affil \orcidaffil{0000-0002-1825-0097}}
\affil[2]{Second Affil}

\maketitle

\end{document}

Answer 2

The orcidlink package (in version 1.0.4, 1.0.2 is not "robust" enough) is another option:

\author[1]{First Last\,\orcidlink{0000-0000-0000-0000}\,}
\author[2]{Second Last\,\orcidlink{0000-0000-0000-0000}\,}