Common Errors

How to Escape Special Characters in LaTeX

LaTeX reserves certain characters for special purposes. To print them literally, you must escape them with a backslash.

Reserved Characters

These characters must be escaped:

% Character | Type | Output
\%          % percent sign
\$          % dollar sign
\&          % ampersand
\_          % underscore
\#          % hash
\{          % left brace
\}          % right brace

Common Mistakes

Before and after fixing:

% WRONG:
The price is $50
Use 10% discount
AT&T company

% CORRECT:
The price is \$50
Use 10\% discount
AT\&T company

Additional Special Characters

Other special characters and how to type them:

\textbackslash  % backslash \
\textasciitilde % tilde ~
\textasciicircum % caret ^

% In URLs, use:
\url{https://example.com/path?query=1&page=2}

💡 Tips

•For URLs with special characters, use \url{} from hyperref package
•In tables, & separates columns - escape with \& for literal ampersand
•In BibTeX entries, use braces: title = {C++ Programming}

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