{punctuation} is for questions involving the typesetting of punctuation marks. If your question relates to punctuation in particular document parts such as e.g. bibliography formatting or section formatting you should also add the appropriate tag for that topic.
60
votes
5answers
8k views
Dashes: - vs. – vs. —
This may or may not be a real TeX/LaTeX question but rather a general question on punctuation:
How are the different dashes - "-", -- "–" and --- "—" supposed to be used?
50
votes
4answers
54k views
Why do the less than symbol (<) and the greater than symbol (>) appear wrong as upside down exclamation (¡) or question mark (¿)?
When typing < or > in LaTeX and compiling with pdflatex, the less than and greater than symbols appear at upside down exclamation points. I'm not in math mode.
45
votes
4answers
4k views
\includegraphics: Dots in filename
\includegraphics cannot handle filenames that contain more than the one dot, separating the filename from the extension. Apparently it uses everything after the first dot as extension and then, of ...
43
votes
1answer
373 views
Is it always best practice to not include text punctuation in inline math mode?
It has been pointed out on this site, e.g. here by egreg, that text punctuation doesn't belong to the formula in inline math. I've been following this practice for a long time, so I write for all ...
42
votes
3answers
7k views
Block quote with big quotation marks
How can I create a block quote enviroment with big quotation marks similar to the Cquote Template of Wikipedia?
Additionally it would be nice to place both quotation marks and quote in a colored box ...
39
votes
1answer
6k views
Aligning numbers by decimal points in table columns
Let me begin by stating that I did google the answers (and I'll reference to them soon). Yet each of the resources I found discussed one particular method, I'm interested in a comparison of the ...
38
votes
6answers
2k views
Isn't there any other way of doing double quotes in LaTeX besides `` + ''?
The standard way of writing quotes and double quotes in LaTeX is with `` and '', but I find them quite ugly. Isn't there something similar to \emph{}, but for quotes? I mean something like ...
38
votes
2answers
3k views
Is a period after an abbreviation the same as an end of sentence period?
Does latex do anything special with periods? If so, is there a way to differentiate end-of-sentence periods from periods indicating abbreviation?
37
votes
5answers
1k views
Upright parentheses in italic text
This question led to a new package:
embrac
Bringhurst, in Elements of Typographic Style, recommends to use upright parentheses in italic text (i.e., write 'a (simple) example' as opposed to 'a ...
32
votes
3answers
1k views
How to properly typeset all forms of punctuation used in English-language documents?
English documents tend to use these types of punctuation:
periods
apostrophes
brackets of various kinds
colons and semicolons
commas
dashes and hyphens
ellipsis
exclamation and question marks
...
30
votes
1answer
2k views
\dots versus \ldots - is there a difference?
Is there a difference between \dots and \ldots, the ellipsis?
If yes: Which? When to use \dots and when to use \ldots?
If no: Why are there both at all?
29
votes
4answers
2k views
How to prevent linebreaks after hyphen if word starts with hyphen?
(Remark: Maybe this is a typically German problem, I'm not sure in which other languages that might be relevant)
Sometimes there are words which start with a hyphen, as they are connected with a word ...
27
votes
2answers
17k views
What is the LaTeX command for “em dash” (—)?
I am trying to insert the symbol in the title of the question, which I copied from a PDF article, but it appears as space in the output file. What is the corresponding LaTeX command?
26
votes
2answers
2k views
What's the advantage of using csquotes over using an editor's auto-replacement for "?
Many editors (TeXnicCenter, Texmaker, TeXworks, ...) offer auto-replacement of " by the desired form of quotation marks, be it `` and '' for English, "` and "' for German, or whatnot. Usually, I know ...
26
votes
1answer
753 views
When should I use intersentence spacing (`\@')?
I've got a sentence that ends on an acronym:
blah blah WORD. Next sentence blah
Running this through chktex, I'm informed that:
Warning 13 in ./file.tex line 9: Intersentence spacing (`\@') ...
25
votes
2answers
661 views
Replace “quotes” with „quotes“?
I live in a funny part of the world where we're required to quote text like this: „quotes“ (note the difference between the opening and closing quote).
Is there an easy way to set up a LaTeX document ...
24
votes
2answers
552 views
Italics emphasis and punctuation [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Should I include punctuation marks in \emph, or should I place those marks after the command?
When emphasizing the last part of a sentence by making it italic, is it ...
23
votes
4answers
457 views
Smart parentheses?
Is there a way of smartly nesting parentheses and square brackets (in text mode), so that LaTeX detects nesting relations and typesets them accordingly? I'm thinking in something like csquotes does ...
23
votes
3answers
3k views
Adequate hyphenation of words already containing a hyphen
Contrary to English, in German there are quite a few words containing a hyphen, e.g. "Arbeiter-Unfallversicherung" (workers' accident insurance). By default, (La)TeX will only break such words after ...
23
votes
2answers
15k views
Which dot character to use in which context?
Wikipedia lists several dot characters in Unicode. These are the ones that are ambiguous to me:
interpunct, middle dot (·) · · U+00B7 "midpoint (in typography)"
...
22
votes
4answers
762 views
Coloring combining characters without changing color of a base character
Problem
I am trying to find out is there a good way to paint combining characters without changing the color of the base character they are combined with. My actual problem case is to make some ...
21
votes
4answers
440 views
Is there a special hyphen-symbol to be used between capital letters?
In words consisting of small letters, the - hyphen seems right. In words (abbreviations, acronyms) consisting of capital letters, the common hyphen appears (at least imho) to be placed too low and to ...
21
votes
1answer
216 views
Why do ``` and ''' produce outputs with different spaces?
Why do
```
and
'''
produce outputs with different spaces?
\documentclass{article}
\parindent=0pt
\begin{document}
Input:
\begin{verbatim}
```\\
'''
\end{verbatim}
Output:
```\\
'''
...
20
votes
4answers
395 views
How does TeX's mechanism for sorting out quotation marks work?
When I enter ``hello'' in TeX, it very nicely reformats it to some nicer version of "hello". The mechanism for this seems to be buried deep down in the depths of TeX (and I can't find it in my usual ...
20
votes
7answers
5k views
How to get straight quotation marks?
How do I get straight quotation marks, i.e., " and ' in TeX? (No, \verb changes the font and this is unacceptable.)
[Edit] I forgot to mention that I’m using XeLaTeX, and fontspec is a necessity. ...
20
votes
3answers
478 views
Should I include punctuation marks in \emph, or should I place those marks after the command?
I wonder if I should place punctuation marks directly after the \emph{} command, or should I include those marks within the curly brackets? Thus:
The languages only differ in their \emph{grammar}, ...
20
votes
2answers
705 views
Is there a way to automatically change kerning between commas/full stops and footnote marks?
This question led to a new package:
fnpct
Following up on my question on the kerning of footnote marks after punctuation marks, I'd like to know if there is a way to achieve the kerning of ...
19
votes
3answers
7k views
Correct use of \paragraph titles?
How should I use \paragraph? I mean, If I want to put "Characteristics", should I put \paragraph{Characteristics} or \paragraph{Characteristics:}. Or is it up to me which one to use?
18
votes
4answers
3k views
What is the best way to use quotation mark glyphs?
There are several types of quotation marks in the English language (and in other languages there are even more). There are also several ways in LaTeX to represent these. I have seen editors, that are ...
18
votes
3answers
2k views
What is best method to insert an ellipsis in a (Xe)TeX document?
What is best method to insert an ellipsis in a (Xe)TeX document?
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Times New Roman}
\begin{document}
a...b a ... b %or
a\ldots b a \ldots b ...
18
votes
3answers
308 views
Comma-separated list environment
This question is somewhat of a follow up to an answer to a previous question (http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/11587/13522).
I would like to create a list environment (similar to itemize and enumerate) ...
18
votes
2answers
4k views
number format in pgfplots axis
How can I change the type of the decimal/thousand separator from the american one to the european one? More precisely, I want:
"1000" to be written as is, instead of "1,000"
"0,1" instead of "0.1"
...
18
votes
3answers
604 views
How to avoid a linebreak before a comma?
I just had a problem with a linebreak after a word ending with a hyphen which was followed by a comma.
This example shows the problem:
(The example is constructed, but this just occurred to me in a ...
17
votes
5answers
3k views
Allow line break, but without inserting a dash
I have a sentence that contains a number of long dataset names. I would like to allow LaTeX to break these names at certain positions that I would like to specify somehow just like I can use \- to ...
17
votes
3answers
4k views
biblatex: How to remove the parentheses around the year in authoryear style?
The standard authoryear style in biblatex puts parentheses around the year in the bibliography and no parentheses around in text citation years:
Smith 2011 shows ... (citation)
Smith, Joe ...
17
votes
2answers
513 views
Entire document typed in monospace font
I want to put an entire document into monospace font for various reasons. This is nominally fairly easy; you can say \renewcommand{\familydefault}{\ttdefault}. However, there at least two problems ...
17
votes
1answer
221 views
What is the ConTeXt equivalent of LaTeX “\@.”
In English text, TeX follows the convention of putting extra space after a period by default, which I like. However, in the case of abbreviations it causes a problem. To suppress the extra space, ...
17
votes
1answer
296 views
Three quotation levels for csquotes
The recommended way of solving nested quotations in Norwegian is to use «» for the outer level and then alternating between ‘’ and “”. (Source)
Is it a large undertaking to do this with csquotes?
16
votes
3answers
543 views
Range of Dates (1999-01 — 2012-12)?
How to typeset range expressed with dash of two ISO8601 dates ?
2010-01--2012-03
or
2010-01---2012-03
or another option ?
16
votes
1answer
693 views
Abbreviations and full stop--how to avoid double dots?
I have trouble with macros expanding to an abbreviated expression. Say I have \WHP which expands to "with high prob." (artificial example). I want to avoid the dot after the abbreviation colliding ...
16
votes
1answer
505 views
Putting quotation marks in TeX document
Have to put double quotes mark for a sentence. I am using Xetex.
For the input string ``The work'', the output is also ``The work'' whereas it should be “The work”. Below is the list of packages and ...
16
votes
1answer
292 views
Comma at the end of last BibTeX field
A BibTeX entry looks like
@entry_type{internal_key,
field_1 = "value_1",
field_2 = "value_2",
...
field_n = "value_n"
}
I've seen examples that put a comma after "value_n". Is there any ...
16
votes
1answer
359 views
Adding an open-quote mark to the start of each line in a multiline quotation?
I'm going to be re-typesetting some old books (from the late 18th Century) in the coming weeks, and a few of them are old enough that they use an archaic typographic convention for quotation: every ...
16
votes
1answer
536 views
Vertical position of punctuation following fractions in display-style equations
Assuming that one wants punctuation in equations, what is the best way to adjusting the vertical position of the punctuation if it follows a fraction? I am using Palatino and Euler here (which I ...
15
votes
3answers
5k views
Guillemets in LaTeX («»)
I need the characters «» in my LaTeX document. I'm writing in English though, and I don't want to use Babel. I have the following hack but I'd like a better way:
\newcommand{\q}[1]{{%
\font\larm = ...
15
votes
4answers
493 views
Microtype and quote environment leads to different indent of first line
When the microtype package is loaded a quote environment which starts with punctuation marks is inconsistent "indented". The first line in the following minimal example is unaffected, i.e. at the same ...
15
votes
3answers
282 views
German-style quotation marks too close to italics letters and mathpazo font package
When I type an text in italic with the Palladio font the German quotation marks are (far) too close to the letters. The problem does not occur with English quotation marks.
Is there any solution or ...
15
votes
1answer
788 views
fontspec with Helvetica breaks quotes
The usual quoting with `` and '' doesn't work anymore after including this (which also changes the engine to XeTeX):
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Helvetica}
They are just printed verbatim in ...
15
votes
2answers
254 views
Defining \xthinspace: Thin space only if not followed by certain characters
Following this 2005 thread from the XeTeX list, I’ve defined a \spaceddash command and assigned it to the Unicode em-dash character U+2014 “—”:
\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
...
15
votes
1answer
421 views
listings package changes hyphens to minus signs
The listings package transforms source-code hyphens (-, U+002D) into minus signs (−, U+2212) when using the default proportional fonts, though not when using the default monospaced typewriter font. A ...
