mjhjmtu

When I convert the MWE below to PDF (using pdflatex) all occurrences of the backquotes cut-and-paste out of the PDF as U+2018 (a "curly backquote") rather than U+0060 (an ASCII backquote, or backtick character).

Is there any way of giving users of the documentation something that will cut-and-paste in the way I want? I do need it to be in the alltt environment (or similar) to get layout and ability to insert various commands.

documentclassarticle
usepackagealltt
usepackage[T1]fontenc

newcommandbqchar'140
begindocument

beginalltt
`hello`
bqworldbq
endalltt

For reference (I need it in the alltt environment or similar): bqhello, worldbq

enddocument

The usepackage[T1]fontenc is there because I attempted to follow the advice for the listing package in How to make sure I get regular ASCII quotes in code examples when using `listings`

Short answer:

`

If you want to use the T1 encoding, this works:

documentclass[varwidth=10cm, preview]standalone
usepackage[T1]fontenc
usepackagetextcomp
usepackagealltt

% In T1, the backtick is encoded as "00
DeclareTextSymbolbtT1"00

begindocument
beginalltt
This is a grave accent, or backtick: bt. So is this: `.
endalltt
enddocument

The T1 encoding has a different layout than ASCII.

If you want to use Unicode (whose first 128 characters are the same as ASCII), you can load fontspec and then either use symbol"0060, or turn off Ligatures = TeX.

`

still works in either OT1, T1 or TU, so it’s your best bet.

You need upquote and textcomp:

documentclassarticle
usepackage[T1]fontenc
usepackagealltt,upquote,textcomp

begindocument

beginalltt
`hello`
endalltt

enddocument