Icelandic, utf8 and utf8x in LaTeX
internationalization, latex, pdflatex, utf-8
Solution
`[UTF8]` is "supported" by the LaTeX team and covers a fairly specific/limited range of unicode input characters. It only defines those symbols that are known to be available with the current font encoding.
`[UTF8x]`, AFAIK, is no longer supported, but covers a much broader range of input symbols. I would recommend only trying it if `[UTF8]` doesn't do what you need.
Secondly, the listings package (and most other related packages that do character scanning) does not support UTF8 input. (If it's working on a friend's machine they must be using an 8-bit input encoding instead.) The `listingsutf8` package provides a UTF8-compatible replacement for `\lstinputlisting` but not for the main `lstlisting` environment. Using XeLaTeX might help you here, however.
Problem
First of all, what's the difference between utf8 and utf8x in ``` \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} ``` when used in LaTeX? Secondly, what packages are required when writing an article in Icelandic using LaTeX? I found: ``` \usepackage[icelandic]{babel} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} ``` after experimenting a bit but I have a feeling some part of the code may be redundant. And even with them the aforementioned packages, the code inside ``` \begin{lstlisting} ... \end{lstlisting} ``` isn't rendered with Icelandic characters when outputted through `pdflatex` in Ubuntu, although it works on my friend's computer (who's running Debian). What's missing?