Percent sign (%) in LaTeX

Percent sign (%)

Miscellaneous

LaTeX command

\%

escaped — a bare % starts a comment

Use inside math mode: $\%$ — base LaTeX, KaTeX and MathJax

In LaTeX the percent character begins a comment, so everything after an unescaped % on that line disappears. Write \% to print the sign. The same escape works in both text and math mode.

All ways to write it

Command	Use	Package	Copy
`\%`	escaped — a bare % starts a comment	none

Example

\text{Efficiency} = 95\%

Prints 95%, with \text keeping the label upright.

Questions

Why did half my line vanish?

An unescaped % commented out the rest of the line. Replace it with \%.

Related symbols

Degree ° ^\circ

Using percent in Confluence

Confluence Cloud has no built-in LaTeX. With LaTeX Math for Confluence you add a math macro to any page, type \% and it renders inline or as a block, with a live preview while you edit. Every command on this page renders there without extra packages.