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Basically I have a section that is describing my algorithm in a pseudo code kind of way, and so I want that text to look like the verbatim text except I still want to be able to use math symbols. Is there any way to do this? Or any other hacky way to get the result?

Werner
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garciaj
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    You should consider the listings package which provides mathescape. This escapes to LaTeX within math, setting the symbols the way you want while still keeping the other content verbatim-like. – Werner Dec 12 '13 at 19:21
  • @Werner ive installed it and listed the package. could you kindly give me quick sample syntax for using mathescape? – garciaj Dec 12 '13 at 19:27

2 Answers2

24

listings provides a mathescape option to escape to LaTeX within math mode (between $...$). There are other escapable options as well, details of which are contained within the listings documentation (section 4.14 Escaping to LaTeX, p 39).

Here is a quick example:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{listings}% http://ctan.org/pkg/listings
\lstset{
  basicstyle=\ttfamily,
  mathescape
}
\begin{document}
Here is some text.
\begin{lstlisting}
Some verbatim text and $f(x)=ax^2+bx+c$.
\end{lstlisting}
Here is some more text.
\begin{verbatim}
Some verbatim text and $f(x)=ax^2+bx+c$.
\end{verbatim}
Some final text.
\end{document}
Werner
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    oh werner, this worked perfectly. thanks for the full answer, i have a deadline in 10 hours and ive been using latex only for an hour! thank you!! – garciaj Dec 12 '13 at 20:02
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    @garciaj then I think it's not worth it using Latex, unless it's (relatively) simple. – Manuel Dec 12 '13 at 22:15
  • @Manuel, Its definitely worth using Latex, it is THE best thing ive come across lately! and half my essay is filled with equations so couldnt have done it without it – garciaj Dec 12 '13 at 23:18
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    @garciaj Now it's the moment. But 10 hours before a deadline… it's not the optimum time. – Manuel Dec 13 '13 at 12:40
  • lstlisting does not work in xelatex. And alltt does not seem to admit Greek letters. – jjmerelo Dec 27 '16 at 20:57
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    @jjmerelo: listings works in XeLaTeX. If not, you're doing something wrong. – Werner Dec 27 '16 at 21:07
  • It does work, only it does funny things when Greek or other letters are included: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/81674/unicode-characters-changing-order-in-listings-xetex I still have the same problem. – jjmerelo Dec 27 '16 at 21:09
  • @jjmerelo: What about fancyvrb? – Werner Dec 27 '16 at 22:03
  • It's indeed fancy, but doesn't have an option to use a font that interprets those characters correctly. – jjmerelo Dec 28 '16 at 07:55
  • In fact, it was just a matter of adding \setmonofont{DejaVu Sans Mono}, that is, a monospace font that includes Greek and other letters. The default ones don't. – jjmerelo Dec 28 '16 at 08:08
5

In XeLaTeX, which admits typing the Unicode symbols directly, the only thing you need is to select a mono font that can display them. 

\usepackage{unicode-math}
\setmonofont{DejaVu Sans Mono}

And then

\begin{verbatim}
sin(π/3)² + cos(π/3)²
\end{verbatim}

will be rendered as formula correctly rendered

jjmerelo
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