Text Formatting ⇒ Writing lessthan and greaterthan symbols inside italic style

[lantius]

Hi,

I am using TexMaker 3.5.2. Compiling with default options.

The following code

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<< >> \textit{ << }  \textit{>>}

Give me these errors:

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! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.
! Missing } inserted.

Both errors in same line, where is written the code.

Furthermore it shows some fancy less than and greater than symbols but i just want << and >> to be written.

I have checked out Wiki Latex Book, but << and >> are not said to be special characters.

How could I get it written << and >> in italic style without errors?

Thanks for your attention.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

<< and >> are ligatures. They are used for quoting, I guess that's what you mean with fancy.

Italic is no problem by default. But for example babel with Spanish language can cause a problem, because it uses those characters as shortcuts for quoting. In this case:

• Disable quoting by \deactivatequoting in the preamble after loading babel.
• Write <{}< to break the ligature. Just this empty group separates the characters and avoids a ligature. Also {<}< and similar would work.

Stefan

[lantius]

¡Thank you! For such a fast answer. It worked perfectly.