_J_o_h_n_s_o_n & _J_o_h_n_s_o_n, $ _ ### ^ ~ _D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n: This is the description _A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s: foo: item 1 bar: space, the item 2 bah: newline, then item 3 _D_e_t_a_i_l_s: R R \R alphabetaGamma In code, all that needs to be escaped is percent, backslash and unpaired braces: '% \ {'. Unescaped: '$ # _ ^ ~ < > |', and as a pair, '{...}'. If we escape: ' \_ \# \$ \& { } \ ' And some backslashes: '\ \ \\ \\' should give one, one, two, two backslashes. How about \ (that is backslash space) in text? Elsewhere, { } % \ need to be escaped, but not $ # _ ^ ~ < > | . Let's try that again in '\samp': ' { } % \ $ # _ ^ ~ < > |'. And if we do escape: \$ \# \_ , and with three backslashes, \\#. a < b > c | d, x^y \$k > \#k, x_y, x\_y group-weighting from $[N_iP_i(1-P_i)]$ % a \ \% c { \{ _U_R_L_s _a_n_d _e_m_a_i_l_s: URLs need to be verbatim: . Markus Kuhn, "ASCII and Unicode quotation marks". No escape is needed in _E_x_a_m_p_l_e_s: "\\r\\n"