13 Special characters

This chapter deals with special characters and symbols.

A guiding principle: try to use LaTeX formulas for maths, but only for maths.

For non-math symbols, “HTML entities” are useful: these are codes of the form &..; for special characters, e.g.   for a non-breakable space or → and ← for right and left arrows. Various websites allow you to search for HTML entities; try this one for instance.

Using HTML entities requires a font with fairly good unicode support. If your font miss a particular HTML entity, you will get a warning. If that’s the case you can try using a LaTeX formula instead (e.g. $\rightarrow$ ). But for non-math content HTML entities are preferable. because they make your content more machine-readable.

Latin characters with diacritics (å, é, è, ü, ø, etc.) should be entered as such, not in LaTeX codes.
Greek text (not: Greek letters in maths) should be entered as such, provided your font covers Greek as well as Latin.
§ should be simply entered §, because it’s a fairly basic character available on your keyboard and most fonts. Not its LaTeX equivalent, $\S$ .
→ and ←, when used outside of a logical formula (say “the appearance→reality principle”) should be inserted as HTML entities: → and ←. If they are absent from your font, you can use their LaTeX math version as a fallback: $\rightarrow$ and $leftarrow$ .
Prime, double prime in labels. E.g. you want a list with items labelled A′, A″, A‴, A⁗. Use ′ (one prime), ″ (two), ‴ (three), &qprime; (four). You should not go beyond that, but if really needed, use math as fallback: A$'''''$, (A$'''''$), A$''''''$.
Number subscripts and superscripts. For mathematical names, e.g. variables, use math mode: $c_1, c_2, \ldots, c_n$ ($c_1, c_2, \ldots, c_n$) and $c^1, c^2, \ldots, c^n$ ($c^1, c^2, \ldots, c^n$). Note that in LaTeX sub/superscripted bits of more than one character should be in curly braces, e.g. c^{10} ($c^{10}$). For names that aren’t mathematical, e.g. custom labels A¹, A², …, use Pandoc’s subscripts and superscripts: A^1^, A^12^, B~2~, … (A¹, A¹², B₂).
Asterisks. For labels A*, A** etc. use * as is: A*, A**. Not the LaTeX $A^{*}$ ($A^{*}$).
Therefore (∴): &there4;, not the LaTeX formula $\therefore$ .

13.1 Schematic letters

Schematic letters in the text, as in:

$S$ knows that $p$

should normally be typset as math formulas. See Chapter 26.

If there are very few schematic letters in an article, it’s acceptable to typeset them as caps and/or emphasis:

S knows that p.

13.2 Hyphens and dashes

See Section 12.5.

13.3 Split fractions

Inline fractions look better when split as in ½ than straight as in $\frac{1}{2}$. For ½, ¼ and ¾ you can use the HTML entites ½, ¼ and ¾ respectively.

For more see Section 26.4.