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\/

Synopsis:

before-character\/after-character

Insert an italic correction, a small space defined by the font designer for each character (possibly zero), to avoid the character colliding with whatever follows. When you use \/, LaTeX takes the correction from the font metric file, scales it by any scaling that has been applied to the font, and then inserts that much horizontal space.

Here, were it not for the \/, the before-character italic f would hit the after-character roman H

\newcommand{\companylogo}{{\it f}\/H}

because the italic letter f leans far to the right.

If after-character is a period or comma then don’t insert an italic correction since those punctuation symbols are so low to the baseline already. However, with semicolons or colons, as well as with normal letters, the italic correction can help. It is typically used between a switch from italic or slanted fonts to an upright font.

When you use commands such as \emph and \textit and \textsl to change fonts, LaTeX automatically inserts the italic correction when needed (see Font styles). However, declarations such as \em and \itshape and \slshape do not automatically insert italic corrections.

Upright characters can also have an italic correction. An example where this is needed is the name pdf\/\TeX. However, most upright characters have a zero italic correction. Some font creators do not include italic correction values even for italic fonts.

Technically, LaTeX uses another font-specific value, the so-called slant parameter (namely \fontdimen1), to determine whether to possibly insert an italic correction, rather than tying the action to particular font commands.

There is no concept of italic correction in math mode; math spacing is done in a different way.