# Problem escaping 2nd dollar sign in plot title
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** plotting, plots
**Created:** [December 10, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388 "2023-12-10T21:27:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@adannenberg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/adannenberg)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388/1 "2023-12-10T21:27:45Z")
Suppose I want a plot with the title “if you give me $2 then i will give you $1”
If i construct
`str = "if you give me \$2 then i will give you \$1"`
then
`println(str)`
returns
`if you give me $2 then i will give you $1`
as I’d hope and expect. But
```julia
x=1:5
y=1:5
print(x, y, title = str, label="")
```
produces this plot
whereas omitting the second dollar sign in the title gives the expected (but not desired) output, i.e. if
`str = "if you give me \$2 then i will give you 1"`
then
`plot(x, y, title = str, label="")`
produces
Why is the second escaped dollar sign not behaving as I’d expect, and what is the solution?
---
### Author:  [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2023, 11:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388/3 "2023-12-10T23:08:10Z")
A workaround is to use another unicode dollar sign:
```julia
using Plots
x = y = 1:5
str = "if you give me ＄2 then i will give you ＄1"
plot(x, y, title=str, label="", titlefont="Helvetica")
```
---
### Author:  [@Benny](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Benny)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2023, 11:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388/4 "2023-12-10T23:28:39Z")
Formatting text between 2 dollar signs ($) is LaTeX math mode. Funnily enough I never noticed normal strings do this too because I used LaTeXStrings to avoid escaping backslashes and dollar signs from the start. Maybe another preceding escaped backslash `\\\$` makes LaTeX see `\$` and escape it in its own way.
---
### Author:  [@adannenberg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/adannenberg)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2023, 2:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388/5 "2023-12-11T02:03:22Z")
@rafael.guerra, using a unicode dollar sign is a good workaround. the julia docs give 💲 as a reasonable alternative.
@benny, i see that plot with most backends does, indeed, allow LaTeX in titles and labels. and i’m sure there’s a way to backslash my way out of trouble, but i couldn’t make your suggestion work. i’ll just use the unicode symbol for now.
---
### Author:  [@Dan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Dan)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2023, 6:23am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-escaping-2nd-dollar-sign-in-plot-title/107388/6 "2023-12-11T06:23:25Z")
I think you are on to something here, the reason for this $ trouble is in the GR library (in the C library, not the wrapper). The math parsing is done in a less than optimal way. But, there is a way to disable this math parsing and to convince Plots to use it:
```julia
julia> import Plots: gr_text
julia> gr_text(x, y, s::AbstractString) =
if (occursin('\\', s) || occursin("10^{", s)) &&
match(r".*\$[^\$]+?\$.*", String(s)) === nothing
GR.textext(x, y, s)
else
GR.textx(x, y, s, UInt32(0))
end
gr_text (generic function with 2 methods)
```
After this fixup (the change is in the `GR.textx` line), the code in the OP:
```julia
str = "if you give me \$2 then i will give you \$1"
x=1:5
y=1:5
plot(x, y, title = str, label="")
```
works well.