From d003a61ebec69766c259fa3183e0dfb6b6f4aa76 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kovid Goyal <kovid@kovidgoyal.net>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2021 19:13:11 +0530
Subject: [PATCH] Sadly the better fix did not work

so go back to mokeypatching
---
 manual/latex.py | 14 +++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/manual/latex.py b/manual/latex.py
index 3ff1a66b80..1035ce8b52 100644
--- a/manual/latex.py
+++ b/manual/latex.py
@@ -10,17 +10,29 @@ import os
 
 from sphinx.builders.latex import LaTeXBuilder
 from sphinx.util.logging import getLogger
+from sphinx.writers.latex import LaTeXTranslator
 
 
 def info(*a):
     getLogger(__name__).info(*a)
 
 
+class FixedLaTeXTranslator(LaTeXTranslator):
+    # see https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues/8936
+
+    def visit_substitution_definition(self, node):
+        pass
+
+    def depart_substitution_definition(self, node):
+        pass
+
+
 class LaTeXHelpBuilder(LaTeXBuilder):
     name = 'mylatex'
+    default_translator_class = FixedLaTeXTranslator
 
     def finish(self):
-        LaTeXBuilder.finish(self)
+        super().finish()
         info('Fixing Cyrillic characters...')
         tex = os.path.join(self.outdir, 'calibre.tex')
         with open(tex, 'r+b') as f: