This article aims to show you the simplest and easiest way to write the percent symbol in LaTeX.
The percent symbol is very common nowadays, either in science, economics, business, or everyday life. That is why today you will learn a little bit about it and how to write it in your LaTeX documents.
Percent Sign/Symbol
The percent sign or percent symbol, is used to indicate the percentage which is a ratio as a fraction of 100; in plain english it indicates that a number is divided by 100.
I can assure you that this special character is used more than you can actually notice, and learning how to write it in LaTeX will be helpful in the long term.
Percent Symbol in LaTeX
In LaTeX to write the percent symbol, we do not need any package (at least for now), it is built-in by default.
Likewise, this symbol is allowed either in math or text mode.
To write percent in the document you would probably be tempted to use the “%” key on your keyboard, but it would not work. In LaTeX the character “%” is used for comments, everything written following it would be a comment in your code.
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Using \verb|\%|: \% \\
Using \verb|%|: % which do not create any output, meaning it is a comment
\end{document}
That is why we first use a backslash “\” and then the percentage symbol “%”, the LaTeX command would look like “\%”. As you can see it does not have any value as an argument (lucky us!), for example
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Text mode: 4 is the 20\% of 20 \\
Math mode: $10$ is the $50\%$ of $20$
\end{document}
Usually, LaTeX has many special characters or symbols already but if you feel unsatisfied, you can always check packages on the internet for more symbols and possibilities. Although we do not recommend it if it’s already there, why reinvent the wheel?
I hope this tutorial was helpful in guiding you, and as always keep writing in LaTeX.
All images were created in LaTeX by the author.
Further Reading
LaTex Tutorial on Symbols
- How To Create A Cross Product Symbol In LaTeX
- How to create a hat symbol in LaTeX?
- How to create a prime symbol in LaTeX?
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- How to create an approximate symbol in LaTeX?
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