Fun unicode characters with pandoc

Question

Silly question: I want to use a heart (♥) character in my presentation.

I'm already using xelatex as engine so it doesn't complain for the character itself but it doesn't render it. Just a blank space where the character should be.

Here is the snippet of the offending code:

    (Celery + RabbitMQ) ♥  Django

Notice that I'm using markdown for the input format.

This is how I make the pdf

pandoc -t beamer --latex-engine=xelatex \
    in.md -oout.pdf --slide-level=2

I'm new to pandoc and latex in general.

♥ Thanks ♥

Answer 1

Maybe you need this answer.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{arev}
\begin{document}
$\heartsuit$
\end{document}

Answer 2

If you want a tikzsolution this works

\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{tikz}
\newcommand{\heartz}{\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.01]
\draw[fill=black,thick,domain=0:2*pi,variable=\t,samples=100] %
plot ({16*sin(\t r)^3} , {13*cos(\t r) - 5*cos(2*\t r) - 2*cos(3*\t r) - cos(4*\t r) });
\end{tikzpicture}}
\begin{document}
\heartz 
\end{document}

This code was a result from a small discussion in chat, thanks to percusse.

Answer 3

The following works for me:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{XITS}

\begin{document}
♥ 
\end{document}

Answer 4

Just another fun stuff with PSTricks. Compile the given code with xelatex because the code use JPEG image with which latex-dvips-ps2pdf sequence cannot work.

User Defined Data

\def\Rows{5}
\def\Columns{5}
\def\Filename{tutuca.jpeg}%{example-grid-100x100pt}
\def\Scale{1.45}

Output

Complete Code

\documentclass[pstricks,border=12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{pst-func}

% user defined data
\def\Rows{5}
\def\Columns{5}
\def\Filename{tutuca.jpeg}%{example-grid-100x100pt}
\def\Scale{1.45}

% internal used data
\newsavebox\IBox
\savebox\IBox{\includegraphics[scale=\Scale]{\Filename}}

\def\func{%
    \psparametricplot{0}{2.5 .25 exp}{t^2  | 0.8*(sqrt(2.5-t^4)+t)}
    \psparametricplot{2.5 .25 exp}{0}{t^2  | 0.8*(-sqrt(2.5-t^4)+t)}
    \psparametricplot{0}{2.5 .25 exp}{-t^2 | 0.8*(-sqrt(2.5-t^4)+t)}
    \psparametricplot{2.5 .25 exp}{0}{-t^2 | 0.8*(sqrt(2.5-t^4)+t)}
}

\psset
{
    xunit=0.5\dimexpr\wd\IBox/\Columns\relax,
    yunit=0.5\dimexpr\ht\IBox/\Rows\relax,
    algebraic,
    plotpoints=500,
}

\begin{document}

\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=top](-\Columns,-\Rows)(\Columns,\Rows)
    \rput(0,0){\usebox\IBox}
    \pscustom[unit=2cm,origin={0,-0.3},linecolor=yellow]{\func}
\end{pspicture}

\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=false](-\Columns,-\Rows)(\Columns,\Rows)
    \psclip{\pscustom[linestyle=none,linewidth=0pt,unit=2cm,origin={0,-0.3}]{\func}}
        \rput(0,0){\usebox\IBox}
    \endpsclip
\end{pspicture}

\end{document}