Escaping backslash in R Sweave document causing line break

Question

I want to write something in an R Sweave document so that the following appears in the compiled PDF:

When you write "\beta" and compile the document, you see "β".

However, when I escape the backslash for beta, I'm getting a line break, which is not desired.

How do I get "\beta" rather than a line break?

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Example from file test.rnw:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

When you write ``\\beta'' and compile the document, you see ``$\beta$''.

\end{document}

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Result:

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Setup:

Macbook Pro, R 4.1.0, RStudio 1.4.1717, rmarkdown 2.9, and some version of MacTex installed. RStudio is set to compile using knitr and pdflatex.

Answer 1

The double blackslash in text mode induces a linebreak (see here for a simple explanation).

You may use also verb"\beta" to better distinguish the Latex command from normal text.

When you write \verb"\beta" and compile the document, you see $\beta$.

Answer 2

Use \textbackslash

When you write ``\textbackslash beta'' and compile the document, you see ``$\beta$''.