\documentclass[a4paper]{article} % generated by Docutils \usepackage{cmap} % fix search and cut-and-paste in Acrobat \usepackage{ifthen} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \usepackage[basque,esperanto,estonian,galician,ngerman,english]{babel} \AtBeginDocument{\shorthandoff{.<>}} \deactivatetilden % restore ~ in Galician \makeatletter \addto\extrasestonian{\bbl@deactivate{~}} \makeatother \makeatletter \addto\extrasbasque{\bbl@deactivate{~}} \makeatother %%% Custom LaTeX preamble % PDF Standard Fonts \usepackage{mathptmx} % Times \usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet} \usepackage{courier} %%% User specified packages and stylesheets %%% Fallback definitions for Docutils-specific commands % hyperlinks: \ifthenelse{\isundefined{\hypersetup}}{ \usepackage[colorlinks=true,linkcolor=blue,urlcolor=blue]{hyperref} \usepackage{bookmark} \urlstyle{same} % normal text font (alternatives: tt, rm, sf) }{} %%% Body \begin{document} The \href{http://www.ctan.org/packages/babel}{babel} package introduces the concept of \textquotedbl{}shorthands\textquotedbl{}: additional characters that introduce a latex macro. Most common is the active double quote (\textquotedbl{}). Problematic is the tilde character (\textasciitilde{}) which is regularely used for no-break spaces but redefined by some language definition files: English: 'an' \textquotedbl{}active\textquotedbl{}-quote, \textasciicircum{}circumflex, and no-break spaces \foreignlanguage{basque}{Basque: 'an' \textquotedbl{}active\textquotedbl{}-quote, \textasciicircum{}circumflex, and no-break spaces} \foreignlanguage{esperanto}{Esperanto: 'an' \textquotedbl{}active\textquotedbl{}-quote, \textasciicircum{}circumflex, and no-break spaces} \foreignlanguage{estonian}{Estonian: 'an' \textquotedbl{}active\textquotedbl{}-quote, \textasciicircum{}circumflex, and no-break spaces} \foreignlanguage{galician}{Galician: 'an' \textquotedbl{}active\textquotedbl{}-quote, \textasciicircum{}circumflex, and no-break spaces} \foreignlanguage{ngerman}{German: 'an' \textquotedbl{}active\textquotedbl{}-quote, \textasciicircum{}circumflex, and no-break spaces} Spanish: option clash with Galician! % .. class:: language-es % % Spanish: 'an' "active"-quote, ^circumflex, and no-break spaces \end{document}