Escaping an underscore in LaTeX export

Escaping an underscore in LaTeX export

[John Hendy]

LaTeX recommends \_ as an "escaped" underscore. In other words,
"really use the underscore, not a subscript." When I do this in
Org-mode and export via =C-e l p=, I don't get that behavior.

Here's my options header:

#+OPTIONS: *:t TeX:t LaTeX:t

a\_b  -> a$\backslash$$_{\text{b}}$
a$\_$b  ->  a\$\_\$b
a $\_$ b  ->  a $\_$ b

What *does* work, is this:

a\(\_\)b  ->  a\_b


If this is the best/only way, that's okay. However, if others believe
that it should be passed through as \_ to LaTeX, perhaps that's the
best way? After all, just passing along _ works to subscript whenever
and wherever with my tex:t and latex:t options... perhaps escaping it
should also work?

An analog might be the use of \$, which escapes the dollar sign and
passes it through to appear as a dollar sign in the final document. I
suppose I'd make the case that if that's interpreted to be escaping
(vs. converting it to $\backslash$$), then perhaps escaping an
underscore should be treated the same.

Fringe use that I just stumbled on and isn't a critical issue, but I
thought I'd mention it.

Re: Escaping an underscore in LaTeX export

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:

> LaTeX recommends \_ as an "escaped" underscore. In other words,
> "really use the underscore, not a subscript." When I do this in
> Org-mode and export via =C-e l p=, I don't get that behavior.
>
> Here's my options header:
>
> #+OPTIONS: *:t TeX:t LaTeX:t
>
> a\_b  -> a$\backslash$$_{\text{b}}$
> a$\_$b  ->  a\$\_\$b
> a $\_$ b  ->  a $\_$ b
>
> What *does* work, is this:
>
> a\(\_\)b  ->  a\_b

You can use the entity : \under{}, e.g.

  a\under{}b

or limit subscript to _{...} constructs., e.g.,

  #+options: ^:{}
  a_b


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Escaping an underscore in LaTeX export

[John Hendy]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 6:14 PM, Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> LaTeX recommends \_ as an "escaped" underscore. In other words,
>> "really use the underscore, not a subscript." When I do this in
>> Org-mode and export via =C-e l p=, I don't get that behavior.
>>
>> Here's my options header:
>>
>> #+OPTIONS: *:t TeX:t LaTeX:t
>>
>> a\_b  -> a$\backslash$$_{\text{b}}$
>> a$\_$b  ->  a\$\_\$b
>> a $\_$ b  ->  a $\_$ b
>>
>> What *does* work, is this:
>>
>> a\(\_\)b  ->  a\_b
>
> You can use the entity : \under{}, e.g.
>
>   a\under{}b
>
> or limit subscript to _{...} constructs., e.g.,
>
>   #+options: ^:{}
>   a_b

I'll look into this. I probably should have sooner, and it wouldn't
bother me *that* much to have to specify underscore and superscript
LaTeX entities with {} vs. having them picked up automatically.

Thanks for the tip!
John

>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Nicolas Goaziou