{"id":47676,"date":"2026-02-02T17:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/?p=47676"},"modified":"2026-02-04T19:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:21:14","slug":"quick-tip-latex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/quick-tip-latex\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Tip: LaTeX"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When I first started using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.overleaf.com\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.overleaf.com\/\">LaTeX<\/a>, I wasted a good amount of time trying to debug code that looked perfectly fine. The culprit? I was typing like I was in Microsoft Word.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>LaTeX treats certain symbols as commands rather than text. If you use them without &#8220;escaping&#8221; them, the software thinks you are trying to give it an instruction it doesn&#8217;t understand.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are the top 3 distinct characters that will break your document if you aren&#8217;t careful, and how to fix them:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Percent Sign (%)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Problem:<\/strong>&nbsp;Typing something like &#8220;We achieved 100% efficiency&#8221;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Why it breaks:&nbsp;<\/strong>In LaTeX, % is used to make comments. Everything you type after it becomes invisible to the compiler.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Fix:&nbsp;<\/strong>Add a backslash: &#8220;We achieved 100\\% efficiency&#8221;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ampersand (&amp;)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Problem:<\/strong>&nbsp;Typing something like &#8220;Statistical &amp; Data Sciences&#8221;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Why it breaks:&nbsp;<\/strong>LaTeX uses &amp; to separate columns and align equations. It thinks you are trying to start a new table column in the middle of a sentence.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Fix:&nbsp;<\/strong>Add a backslash: &#8220;Statistical \\&amp; Data Sciences&#8221;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The Dollar Sign($)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Problem:&nbsp;<\/strong>Typing something like &#8220;It costs $50&#8221;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Why it breaks:&nbsp;<\/strong>The $ triggers &#8220;Math Mode.&#8221; LaTeX thinks you are starting an equation and will throw an error if you don\u2019t close it with another $.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Fix:&nbsp;<\/strong>Add a backslash: &#8220;It costs \\$50&#8221;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"819\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/01\/1-819x1024.png\" alt=\"An image version of Yajas' LaTeX quicktip\" class=\"wp-image-47771\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/01\/1-819x1024.png 819w, https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/01\/1-400x500.png 400w, https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/01\/1-768x960.png 768w, https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/01\/1.png 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 819px) 100vw, 819px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>KEY TAKEAWAY: If your document crashes and you don\u2019t&#8217; know why, check for these special characters first. A simple backslash may be the hero you need!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I first started using LaTeX, I wasted a good amount of time trying to debug code that looked perfectly fine. The culprit? I was typing like I was in Microsoft Word.&nbsp;&nbsp;LaTeX treats certain symbols as commands rather than text. If you use them without &#8220;escaping&#8221; them, the software thinks you are trying to give [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1133,"featured_media":47790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[765],"class_list":["post-47676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sta-reflection"],"acf":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-scaled.jpg",1920,2560,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-375x500.jpg",375,500,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"large":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-1152x1536.jpg",1152,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-1536x2048.jpg",1536,2048,true]},"post_excerpt_stackable":"<p>When I first started using LaTeX, I wasted a good amount of time trying to debug code that looked perfectly fine. The culprit? I was typing like I was in Microsoft Word.&nbsp;&nbsp;LaTeX treats certain symbols as commands rather than text. If you use them without &#8220;escaping&#8221; them, the software thinks you are trying to give it an instruction it doesn&#8217;t understand.&nbsp;&nbsp; Here are the top 3 distinct characters that will break your document if you aren&#8217;t careful, and how to fix them:&nbsp; The Percent Sign (%)&nbsp; The Problem:&nbsp;Typing something like &#8220;We achieved 100% efficiency&#8221;&nbsp; Why it breaks:&nbsp;In LaTeX, % is&hellip;<\/p>\n","category_list":"<a href=\"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/category\/sta-reflection\/\" rel=\"category tag\">STA Reflection<\/a>","author_info":{"name":"Yajas Kandel","url":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/author\/ykandel27wooster-edu\/"},"comments_num":"0 comments","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-scaled.jpg",1920,2560,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-375x500.jpg",375,500,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"large":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-1152x1536.jpg",1152,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/83\/2026\/02\/image-1536x2048.jpg",1536,2048,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Yajas Kandel","author_link":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/author\/ykandel27wooster-edu\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"When I first started using LaTeX, I wasted a good amount of time trying to debug code that looked perfectly fine. The culprit? I was typing like I was in Microsoft Word.&nbsp;&nbsp;LaTeX treats certain symbols as commands rather than text. If you use them without &#8220;escaping&#8221; them, the software thinks you are trying to give&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47676"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47893,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47676\/revisions\/47893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47676"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.wooster.edu\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=47676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}