LaTeX Pet peeves
2026-01-22 → 2026-01-30
Here are some of my very personal LaTeX pet peeves. Not being aware of these will probably not make any difference in your life unless you’re working with me. 👀
Not using the tilde (~), the “glue”#
The tilde ~ is a non-breaking space, or you can think of it as a transparent ‘glue’ that occupies a little bit of space. It prevents LaTeX from inserting a line break at that position. If you don’t have a space, the citations become too close to the last word. A space without tilde can end up with citations, references, or numbers orphaned at the start of a line, which looks awkward (to me).
🙂↔️
as shown by Author\cite{author2024}.
as shown by Author \cite{author2024}.
Dr. Smith ...
see Figure \ref{fig:results}
🙂↕️
as shown by Author~\cite{author2024}.
Dr.~Smith ...
see Figure~\ref{fig:results}
When to use it#
The most common usages of ~ are:
- Before
\cite{}: keeps the citation attached to the preceding word - Before
\ref{}: keeps “Figure 1” or “Table 2” together - After titles:
Dr.~Smith - With numbers and units:
100~kg
The general rule: if a line break between two elements would look wrong, use ~.
When NOT to use it#
Unlike \cite{}, in most cases, footnotes should not have a tilde before them. The footnote mark is a superscript that attaches directly to the preceding word or punctuation—adding a space would create an awkward gap.
🙂↔️
This is important~\footnote{...} because ...
🙂↕️
This is important\footnote{...} and the sentence continues.
This is important.\footnote{...}
At the end of a sentence, the footnote typically goes after the period (American style). Some style guides place it before, so check your target venue—but never with a tilde either way.
Hyphen, n-dash, m-dash, and minus sign#
There are specific use cases for each of the dashes and you want to use them appropriately. You can look up how they should be used, but here’s a summary:
| Name | LaTeX | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Hyphen | - |
Compound words, line breaks |
| En-dash | -- |
Ranges, connections |
| Em-dash | --- |
Parenthetical breaks |
We don’t have to use en-dash much, so em-dash is usually my problem. Em-dash is used for parenthetical statements. The thing about em-dash is that it’s visually much more distinct than using a comma while not as abrupt as parentheses. In LaTeX, I think em-dash without any space creates just the right amount of spacing; having space around em-dash makes the phrases too far apart (all to my eyes).
🙂↔️
The results - surprising as they were - confirmed our hypothesis.
The results --- surprising as they were --- confirmed our hypothesis.
🙂↕️
The results---surprising as they were---confirmed our hypothesis.
And, while we’re at it… a hyphen is also not a minus sign.
🙂↔️
The temperature was -10 degrees.
🙂↕️
The temperature was $-10$ degrees.
Mixing these symbols is not the end of the world (and there are multiple conflicting style guides) but I think it’s still good to follow these conventions (and looks nicer).
Quotation marks#
LaTeX doesn’t understand straight quotes (") natively. Some editors auto-insert curly “fancy” quotes when you type the quotes, and actually some LaTeX compilers may handle them properly (with the right encoding/font setup). But, this is not reliable 🫣.
For proper typeset quotation marks, use backticks for opening and apostrophes for closing.
🙂↔️
She said "the word 'glyph' is lovely" to her friend.
🙂↕️
She said ``the word `glyph' is lovely'' to her friend.