LaTeX Character Basics Tutorial - Part 1
LaTeX Character Basics - Part 1
When typing text into your favorite text editor, the characters that you type
are the characters that you see on the screen.
There are markup languages that convert text files into something more.
Some examples are Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), HyperText Markup
Language (HTML), Markdown, ConTeXt, Encoded Archival Description
(EAD), Rich Text Format (RTF), Chemical Markup Language (CML), LATEX
and many more.
All of these document markup languages process text files so that the
output document is visually different from the input content and in that
output document, the markup is no longer visible. In order for that to be
possible, there must be commands embedded in the input text file. Therefore,
it is absolutely necessary to have text characters that will not be processed
normally. There must be commands embedded in the input file and that
means that certain characters will require special handling. I’ll try to go
over the special characters used in LATEX input documents.
Normal Letter Characters and Numeric Characters
All of the lowercase and uppercase letter characters are typed in normally
and require no special handling. The same is true of the numeric characters
0 through 9.
Punctuation Characters that are Handled Normally
The following punctuation characters are handled normally and require no
special treatment:
Some Math Symbols in Ordinary Text
LATEX operates in different modes. You can include both ‘+’ and ‘=’ in
ordinary text. However, may not do what you expect unless
you are working in math mode.
Punctuation Characters that Require Backslashes
Use the following single-character following a backslash LATEX commands to
produce the characters that follow:
Other Special Handling Punctuation Characters
Some punctuation characters require more than a single character following a
backslash. BTW, there are many other ways to name the backslash including
slosh, downwhack, backwhack, reverse slant. I’m getting off track. Anyway:
textbackslash
textasciitilde
textasciicircum
textbar
textless
textgreater
In many cases, there is more than one way to produce a given character.
To keep things brief here, I’m only showing one way to help you get started
quickly.