Get a TeX Live bundle, e.g. on Nix:
nix-shell -p texlive.combined.scheme-basic
Or with Homebrew for macOS:
brew install --cask mactex
Then run this to compile the LaTeX file into a PDF:
pdflatex zz-01-appendix.tex
Behold as your humble text file metamorphoses into a splendid PDF, a transformation as marvelous as turning lead into gold!
For LaTeX, certain characters have special meanings and need to be escaped:
- Percent sign:
%
, escape as\%
- Dollar sign:
$
, escape as\$
- Curly braces:
{}
, escape as\{ \}
- Underscore:
_
, escape as\_
- Hash/pound sign:
#
, escape as\#
- Ampersand:
&
, escape as\&
- Backslash:
\
, escape as\\
- Less than and greater than signs:
< >
, escape as\textless \textgreater
- Caret:
^
, escape as\^
- Tilde:
~
, escape as\textasciitilde
or\~{}
For detailed documentation, refer to LaTeX/Special Characters on Wikibooks: LaTeX/Special Characters.