pdf_document renders "^" that aren't usable R code

[levisc8]

I'm rendering a PDF document with code that ideally would be copy+paste-able for readers. However, it seems "^" is converted to a similar looking, yet unusable form. For example, rendering the following document

---
output: pdf_document
---

```{r}
2^2

```

and then copy+pasting the code in the rendered code chunk back into R yields:

2ˆ2
> Error: unexpected input in "2ˆ"

This doesn't happen with html_document:

 ---
 output: html_document
 ---
 
```{r}
2^2
```

2^2
> [1] 4

Does anyone have suggestions for how to fix this? Output from xfun::session_info('rmarkdown'):

R version 4.1.0 (2021-05-18)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 19042), RStudio 1.5.119

Locale:
  LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252   
  LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C                          
  LC_TIME=English_United States.1252    

Package version:
  base64enc_0.1.3 digest_0.6.28   evaluate_0.14   fastmap_1.1.0   glue_1.4.2      graphics_4.1.0 
  grDevices_4.1.0 highr_0.9       htmltools_0.5.2 jquerylib_0.1.4 jsonlite_1.7.2  knitr_1.36     
  magrittr_2.0.1  methods_4.1.0   rlang_0.4.12    rmarkdown_2.11  stats_4.1.0     stringi_1.7.5  
  stringr_1.4.0   tinytex_0.34    tools_4.1.0     utils_4.1.0     xfun_0.27       yaml_2.2.1     

Pandoc version: 2.12

[cderv]

PDF document are rendered by being processed by LaTeX. LaTeX will process character a certain way and this could happen.

In general, PDF is not a plain text document like HTML is. So I wouldn't expect code chunk in PDF document produced by LaTeX to be ready for copy pasting. Some of the characters could be processed by LaTeX and changed for typesetting or other.

[levisc8]

Thanks for your answer! I'll see if I can tweak the LaTeX output and recompile afterwards, or just switch to HTML.