markdown_github behaves differently with UTF-8 than markdown for PDF output

[RickStrahl]

When doing a markdown conversion to PDF I see different behavior in terms of UTF 8 conversion between -f github and -f markdown_github. It looks like markdown_github is choking on Emojii expressions that generate extended ASCII characters.

The error I get:

inputenc Error: Unicode char 😄 (U+1F604)
(inputenc)                not set up for use with LaTeX.

The error is caused by this markdown in the document:

your favorite browser preview pages. :smile:

So this works:

pandoc -f markdown -s tmp802E.md -o test.pdf
pandoc -f markdown_github -s tmp802E.md -o test.html

this doesn't:

pandoc -f markdown_github -s tmp802E.md -o test.pdf

[mb21]

markdown_github includes the emoji extension. which translates e.g. :smile: to the corresponding unicode char. That unicode char in turns is probably not supported by pdflatex. try --latex-engine=xelatex, see #2523