# backslash and dot in enumeration

I try to modify my enumeration list by using the enumitem package. The desired out put is a list of 1\. item, 2\. item, and so on. I tried the following

mwe1:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}[label={\arabic*\backslash\dot}]
\item 1
\item 2
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}


mwe2:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}[label={\arabic*\backslash .}]
\item 1
\item 2
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}


but non of them work.

• \backslash and \dot are math commands (and \dot takes an argument: \dot{x}). Try \textbackslash.. – Phelype Oleinik Sep 10 at 13:27
• that's solves the problem. i thought that both of them can be used in text as well. could you provide a more complete answer for future reference? – Yorgos Sep 10 at 13:30
• Done :-) (and more characters) – Phelype Oleinik Sep 10 at 13:39
• Why the backslash? Is that really common somewhere? – egreg Sep 10 at 13:59
• no. i would say that it's rather unusual, but more a matter of personal interest. – Yorgos Sep 11 at 13:59

The error message you get from either of your examples is:

! Missing $inserted. <inserted text>$
l.7 \item 1

?


which (usually) means that TeX found a math command in text mode, while processing \item 1. The guilty command here is \backslash, because it's a math delimiter defined (in fontmath.ltx) as:

\DeclareMathDelimiter{\backslash}
{\mathord}{symbols}{"6E}{largesymbols}{"0F}


you can replace that by some text command, like \textbackslash.

If you do that, the second example will work, while the first will still produce the same error. The guilty command now is \dot, which is used to place a dot over a variable, like in \dot{x} to produce ẋ (it also takes an argument, so if you try to use label={\arabic*$\backslash\dot$}, TeX will throw yet another error). Here you can simply use the character ..

Working MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}[label={\arabic*\textbackslash .}]
\item 1
\item 2
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}