Q&a for users of tex, latex, context, and related typesetting systems Latex still supports it for one reason or another, but the proper one to use, as defined in the specifications, is \[ \]. All this just means that they are not promising that $$ will always work.

Escape character in latex in the itemize environment, how do i use the ampersand symbol & without latex trying to use it as a command? Sometimes the symbol := is used to denote a definition. For example, x:=y+z means that x is defined to be y+z. When using latex, can i just use $:=$, or do i need to do something special?