7

I have gone through some of the questions on SO related to etc and other similar short hand characters. Everywhere is it problem specific. So I would like to know, is there a special command in latex, without defining out own command for using etc.

some thing goes for versus, a vs b ? how do we represent them?

Thanks.

Improve this question
5
  • you type it as e,t,c,. ?
    – percusse
    Nov 21, 2016 at 10:29
  • @percusse...In case of some publications, does one dot is good or three dots are good ? I have seen both. So isn't there a universal standard in using it ? or does it user specific?
    – cppiscute
    Nov 21, 2016 at 10:37
  • 1
    I have never seen three dots (ellipsis they are called). You either leave ellipsis or etc. not both of them as far as I know.
    – percusse
    Nov 21, 2016 at 10:38
  • @LaRiFaRi...Thanks for the suggestion, I will make a custom command and will use it whenever required.
    – cppiscute
    Nov 21, 2016 at 10:55
  • You can use \textdiscount (from the textcomp package) to denote "versus".
    – jk - Reinstate Monica
    Dec 20, 2016 at 16:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8

There is no command for this but \dots. In my eyes, dots are too informal for publications. Just use etc.\ in the middle of a sentence and etc. at its end. Or \&c.\ respectively. Versus should always be vs.\. In any case, make sure to use a custom command for this. As you seem to care for such things, you might change your mind later on and then you will be grateful for a custom command.

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    vs.\ is sometimes simply v.\ , especially in American legal publications. As usual in typography, "always" is a bit strong.
    – dgoodmaniii
    Nov 21, 2016 at 11:30
  • @dgoodmaniii True. I was referring to the back slash, as it will be in the middle of the sentence in most cases. I guess, there will be many variants for both, vs. and etc.
    – LaRiFaRi
    Nov 21, 2016 at 11:48
  • 1
    Control space (\␣) appends glue as if spacefactor were 1000. Instead of control space I suggest restoring the spacefactor to what it was before placing the dot and delimiting the control sequence by a token whereafter spaces get tokenized: \def\vs.{vs.\spacefactor=\the\sfcode`\v} and \def\etc.{etc.\spacefactor=\the\sfcode`\c}. If you don't have the spacefactor restored, the spacefactor of a dot ending a sentence might erroneouly be used in situations where no spaces but closing parentheses follow the abbreviation-dot - e.g., : Animals (zebras, gnus, etc.) are in the wilderness.
    – Ulrich Diez
    Nov 21, 2016 at 13:56

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.