LatexEscaper.java

import java.util.List;

import com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList;
import com.google.common.collect.Lists;

class LatexEscaper {

    private class Replacement {

        final String toReplace;
        final String replaceWith;

        Replacement(final String toReplace, final String replaceWith) {
            this.toReplace = toReplace;
            this.replaceWith = replaceWith;
        }

        String applyTo(final String input) {
            return input.replace(toReplace, replaceWith);
        }

    }

    private final List<Replacement> texReplacements = Lists.newArrayList();
    {
        texReplacements.add(new Replacement("\\", "\\textbackslash "));
        for (final String x : ImmutableList.of("_", "^", "~", "$", "%", "#", "&", "{", "}")) {
            texReplacements.add(new Replacement(x, "\\" + x));
        }
    }

    public String escape(final String input) {
        String escaped = input;
        for (final Replacement replacement : texReplacements) {
            escaped = replacement.applyTo(escaped);
        }
        return escaped;
    }

}

LatexEscaperTest.java

import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class LatexEscaperTest {

    private LatexEscaper escaper;

    @BeforeMethod
    public void init() {
        escaper = new LatexEscaper();
    }

    @Test
    public void testBackslash() {
        Assert.assertEquals(escaper.escape("abc\\def"), "abc\\textbackslash def");
    }

    @Test
    public void testAandB() {
        Assert.assertEquals(escaper.escape("A&B"), "A\\&B");
    }

    @Test
    public void testTexCommand() {
        Assert.assertEquals(escaper.escape("a \\ghi{jkl} z"), "a \\textbackslash ghi\\{jkl\\} z");
    }

}

LatexUtils.java

public final class LatexUtils {

    private LatexUtils() { }

    private static final LatexEscaper escaper = new LatexEscaper();

    public static String escape(final String input) {
        return escaper.escape(input);
    }

}

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

  <groupId>???</groupId>
  <artifactId>latex-util</artifactId>
  <packaging>jar</packaging>
  <version>???</version>

  <name>LaTeX Util</name>
  <description>LaTeX-related utilities</description>

  <dependencies>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
      <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
      <version>12.0</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.code.findbugs</groupId>
      <artifactId>jsr305</artifactId>
    </dependency>

  </dependencies>

</project>