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(latex.info)Special Characters

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Special Characters
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   The following characters play a special role in LaTeX and are called
"special printing characters", or simply "special characters".

                            # $ % & ~ _ ^ \ { }

   Whenever you put one of these special characters into your file, you
are doing something special.  If you simply want the character to be
printed just as any other letter, include a `\' in front of the
character.  For example, `\$' will produce `$' in your output.

   One exception to this rule is the `\' itself because `\\' has its
own special meaning.  A `\' is produced by typing `$\backslash$' in
your file.

   Also, `\~' means `place a tilde accent over the following letter',
so you will probably want to use `\verb' instead.

   In addition, you can access any character of a font once you know its
number by using the `\symbol' command. For example, the character used
for displaying spaces in the `\verb*' command has the code decimal 32,
so it can be typed as `\symbol{32}'.

   You can also specify octal numbers with `'' or hexadecimal numbers
with `"', so the previous example could also be written as
`\symbol{'40}' or `\symbol{"20}'.