Latex environment to write in plain text mode

Question

A paragraph I am writing contains a lot symbols such as "{" or "_". To display those symbols as text instead of command, I have to write them as "\{" and "\_". Otherwise, Latex will say there are errors. However, there are so many of those symbols in my document and it would be very inconvenient to have to add a dash in front of them every single time.

An example:

\begin{document}

The Tadrart Acacus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacus_Mountains) have a large variation of landscapes, from different-coloured dunes to arches, gorges, isolated rocks and deep wadis (ravines).

\end{document}

Refer to the wikipedia link: usually, I just copy the link from my browser and paste it into my paragraph. But due to the "_" symbol in the word "Acacus_Mountains", Latex will say there is an error and ask me to enclose it with the "$" symbol.

About the \verbatim environment: it would not work for me because:

1. It changes the font of the paragraph.
2. It does not go to a new line when reaching the margin.

To illustrate, I will enclose my paragraph with \verbatim:

  \begin{document}

  \begin{verbatim}

  The Tadrart Acacus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacus_Mountains) have a 
  large variation of landscapes, from different-coloured dunes to arches, 
  gorges, isolated rocks and deep wadis (ravines).

  \end{verbatim}

  \end{document}

this is what my text looks like inside the \verbatim environment:

My question is: How to tell Latex that everything in a certain paragraph is to be interpreted as plain text?

Answer 1

Here's my understanding of what you want, based on the question and comments:

• You'd like certain characters (the underscore _ is one, and the brace { may be another but it's not clear as it contradicts the next point) to be treated in a not-special way (i.e. simply typeset that character).
• Unlike verbatim, you'd like certain characters to continue to be treated in a special way, as TeX does by default: for example in \textbf{hello} you'd like the \ the { and the } to have their default (special) meanings.
• Unlike verbatim, you'd like the font to remain normal, and the typesetting too (regular paragraphs with line-breaks, etc).

If this is correct, it may help you to understand what goes on normally. As TeX reads your input, it has a certain “catcode” assigned to each character. (See the answers to What are category codes? for more details.) Things with catcode 11 (“letter”) or catcode 12 (“other”) are simply typeset normally (specifically, they are treated as an instruction to typeset the glyph at that position in the currently loaded font), while others are treated specially.

By default, these are the characters that are treated specially:

• \, {, }
• $, &, #, ^, _, ~, %
• space, end-of-line, control characters

I assume that you want to continue to treat the characters in the first (and third) group specially, but treat the characters in the second group as just text (in TeX terminology, as “other” characters). This you can do by defining an environment like the following simplechar:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\newenvironment{simplechar}{%
   \catcode`\$=12
   \catcode`\&=12
   \catcode`\#=12
   \catcode`\^=12
   \catcode`\_=12
   \catcode`\~=12
   \catcode`\%=12
}{}

\begin{document}

\begin{simplechar}
This is a paragraph with \textbf{bold} and \emph{emphasized} text, but ``special'' characters like $ & # ^ _ ~ % are treated normally, while {braces} are not, and the paragraph uses a normal font and wraps (has line breaks) at text width.
\end{simplechar}

\end{document}

Compare this to the output you get with something like alltt, which is just a bit better than verbatim:

The default behaviour of TeX/LaTeX, of having all those characters treated as special, makes certain things very convenient to type (entering math mode, subscripts and superscripts, defining macros, etc), but can be a “gotcha” for beginner users who just want to typeset text and don't want any of that yet. See similar thoughts by ConTeXt user Aditya on his blog: Some thoughts on lowering the learning curve for using TeX.

Answer 2

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\def\zzz{%
   \catcode`\$=12
   \catcode`\&=12
   \catcode`\#=12
   \catcode`\^=12
   \catcode`\_=12
   \catcode`\~=12
   \catcode`\%=12
   \catcode`\\=12 
   \catcode`\{=12
   \catcode`\}=12
   \zzzz}
{
\catcode`\/=0
\catcode`\[=1
\catcode`\]=2
\catcode`\{=12
\catcode`\}=12
\catcode`\\=12
/long/gdef/zzzz#1\end{zzz}[%
#1/end[zzz]]
]


\begin{document}

\begin{zzz}
The Tadrart Acacus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacus_Mountains) have a large variation of landscapes, from different-coloured dunes to arches, gorges, isolated rocks and deep wadis (ravines).

and \ and & and # and } and {  not forgetting _ and ^ and %


\end{zzz}
\end{document}

Answer 3

If the url package is loaded (preferably with the options hyphens, spaces, and obeyspaces) and the directive \urlstyle{same} is run, it's possible to encase entire paragraphs in \url directives. I wouldn't recommend it, though, as you'll lose hyphenation capabilities. For sure, if this were my document, I would apply \url directives only where necessary.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[hyphens,spaces,obeyspaces]{url}
\urlstyle{same}
\begin{document}

\noindent
The Tadrart Acacus (\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacus_Mountains}) have a large 
variation of landscapes, from different-coloured dunes to arches, gorges, isolated rocks 
and deep wadis (ravines), along with several \url{my_matlab_code.m} files.

\smallskip\noindent
\url{The Tadrart Acacus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacus_Mountains) have a large 
variation of landscapes, from different-coloured dunes to arches, gorges, isolated rocks 
and deep wadis (ravines), as well as a few my_matlab_code.m files.}

\end{document}