title: Using LaTex "~" symbol in Python using LaTeX
body: <p>Please see the piece of the code I am using to produce an image. At the end, I want to write a text withing the image. There, i want to use "~" symbol using TeX rendering set through rc parameters. But, when I run the code, it doesn't even print the "tilde" symbol. Any idea, how can I incorporate this? Thanks. </p>
  
  <pre><code>from matplotlib import rc
  rc('text', usetex=True)
  rc('font',size=size_axislabels,**{'family':'serif','serif':['Times'],'weight' : 'bold'})
  bbox_props = dict(boxstyle="Square,pad=0.3", fc="w", ec="0.5", lw=3)    
  ........
  ........
  ax.text(90, 41, r"Distance: $~$ 500 pc", ha="center", va="center", size=20,transform=ax.get_transform('galactic'),
          bbox=bbox_props)
  </code></pre>