diff --git a/R/kableExtra-package.R b/R/kableExtra-package.R
index a06fbcf..ea2a1da 100644
--- a/R/kableExtra-package.R
+++ b/R/kableExtra-package.R
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
 #' vanilla rmarkdown. For customized rmarkdown templates, it is recommended to
 #' load related LaTeX packages manually.
 #'
-#' @importFrom stringr str_count str_split str_match str_detect str_match_all
+#' @importFrom stringr fixed str_count str_split str_match str_detect str_match_all
 #' str_extract str_replace_all str_trim str_extract_all str_sub str_replace
 #' @importFrom xml2 read_xml xml_attr xml_has_attr xml_attr<- read_html
 #' xml_child xml_children xml_name xml_add_sibling xml_add_child xml_text
@@ -75,6 +75,7 @@
 #' @importFrom glue glue
 #' @importFrom tools file_ext file_path_sans_ext
 #' @importFrom webshot webshot
+#' @importFrom digest digest
 #' @import htmltools
 #' @name kableExtra-package
 #' @aliases kableExtra
diff --git a/R/kable_styling.R b/R/kable_styling.R
index 0a43f74..92ac60b 100644
--- a/R/kable_styling.R
+++ b/R/kable_styling.R
@@ -47,6 +47,9 @@
 #' @param latex_table_env LaTeX option. A character string to define customized
 #' table environment such as tabu or tabularx.You shouldn't expect all features
 #' could be supported in self-defined environments.
+#' @param protect_latex If `TRUE`, LaTeX code embedded between dollar signs
+#' will be protected from escaping.  Has no effect unless HTML format
+#' is chosen:  this is for including complicated math in HTML output.
 #'
 #' @details  For LaTeX, if you use other than English environment
 #' - all tables are converted to 'UTF-8'. If you use, for example, Hungarian
@@ -71,7 +74,8 @@
                           repeat_header_method = c("append", "replace"),
                           repeat_header_continued = FALSE,
                           stripe_color = "gray!6",
-                          latex_table_env = NULL) {
+                          latex_table_env = NULL,
+                          protect_latex = TRUE) {
 
   if (length(bootstrap_options) == 1 && bootstrap_options == "basic") {
     bootstrap_options <- getOption("kable_styling_bootstrap_options", "basic")
@@ -104,7 +108,8 @@
                              bootstrap_options = bootstrap_options,
                              full_width = full_width,
                              position = position,
-                             font_size = font_size))
+                             font_size = font_size,
+                             protect_latex = protect_latex))
   }
   if (kable_format == "latex") {
     if (is.null(full_width)) {
@@ -125,13 +130,41 @@
   }
 }
 
+extract_latex_from_kable <- function(kable_input) {
+  kable_attrs <- attributes(kable_input)
+  regexp <- "(^|[^\\\\])([$][^$]*[^$\\\\]+[$]|[$][$][^$]*[^$\\\\]+[$][$])"
+  latex <- character()
+  while (grepl(regexp, kable_input)) {
+    block <- str_extract(kable_input, regexp)
+    name <- paste0("latex", digest(block))
+    latex[name] <- block
+    kable_input <- str_replace(kable_input, regexp, name)
+  }
+  kable_attrs$extracted_latex <- latex
+  attributes(kable_input) <- kable_attrs
+  kable_input
+}
+
+replace_latex_in_kable <- function(kable_input, latex) {
+  kable_attrs <- attributes(kable_input)
+  for (n in names(latex)) {
+    kable_input <- str_replace_all(kable_input, fixed(n), latex[n])
+  }
+  attributes(kable_input) <- kable_attrs
+  kable_input
+}
+
 # htmlTable Styling ------------
 htmlTable_styling <- function(kable_input,
                               bootstrap_options = "basic",
                               full_width = T,
                               position = c("center", "left", "right",
                                            "float_left", "float_right"),
-                              font_size = NULL) {
+                              font_size = NULL,
+                              protect_latex = TRUE) {
+  if (protect_latex) {
+    kable_input <- extract_latex_from_kable(kable_input)
+  }
   kable_attrs <- attributes(kable_input)
   kable_xml <- read_kable_as_xml(kable_input)
 
@@ -189,6 +222,10 @@
   }
 
   out <- as_kable_xml(kable_xml)
+  if (protect_latex) {
+    out <- replace_latex_in_kable(out, kable_attrs$extracted_latex)
+    kable_attrs$extracted_latex <- NULL
+  }
   attributes(out) <- kable_attrs
   if (!"kableExtra" %in% class(out)) class(out) <- c("kableExtra", class(out))
   return(out)