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I want to input a string "a" in a LaTeX document using German (\documentclass[ngerman]{article}), but I do not want "a to be turned into ä; what can I do? (I know \verb works; are there any other solutions?) Thanks!

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4 Answers 4

other answers are appropriate if this is ordinary text. but if you want, for example, to indicate how to type something, you may want to use "typewriter" style, so


should give you a suitable result.

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Assuming that you really want the "straight" double quote: The correct command is \textquotedbl but \string" works too and is shorter:



\textquotedbl a\textquotedbl
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  1. Maybe it's a good thing if you improve your knowledge about quotation, but
  2. for the moment simply write "{}a{}"
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\dq a should work. Note also that proper quotation marks would be

"`like this"'

i.e. "quotation backtick" and "quotation apostrophe". (Also see the csquotes package.)

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