a backslash (\) followed by a single special character
a backslash (\) followed by a string of letters
The second case is case-sensitive;
\Gamma is different from
\gamma.
These commands are terminated by a nonletter, i.e., a blank, a number,
a punctuation mark or special character.
For commands which produce text a trailing blank is interpreted as the
end of the command, which does not automatically create a space, so
you may have to do something to create an
interword space after this text.
Commands may have mandatory arguments, which are input in braces
({}).
They may also have optional arguments, which are input in square brackets
([]).
These must be used for entities which are not already defined. To
redefine something use, for example,
\renewcommand.
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Revised: Sheldon Green, 03 Nov 1995.