}
+# quick subroutine for print_ps
+#
+# There are ten characters that LaTeX treats as special characters, which
+# means that they do not simply typeset themselves:
+# # $ % & ~ _ ^ \ { }
+#
+# TeX ignores blanks following an escaped character; if you want a blank (as
+# in "10% of ..."), you have to "escape" the blank as well ("10\%\ of ...").
+
+sub _latex_escape {
+ my $value = shift;
+ $value =~ s/([#\$%&~_\^{}])( )?/"\\$1". ( length($2) ? "\\$2" : '' )/ge;
+ $value;
+}
+
#utility methods for print_*
sub balance_due_msg {