Have a look at <...> and \foo-19+*. I think the issue is that the regexp in `font-latex-match-simple-command' is too greedy. A possible fix is attached below: We introduce a new variable `font-latex-match-simple-include-list' for styles to add their special characters for fontification to `font-latex-match-simple-command' which is modified as shown below: \documentclass{beamer} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{MySlide} | | font-latex-sedate-face \end{frame} \foo-19+* \begin{verbatim} (defvar font-latex-match-simple-include-list nil "List of characters allowed in a macro for fontification. Each character is a string.") (make-variable-buffer-local 'font-latex-match-simple-include-list) (defun font-latex-match-simple-command (limit) "Search for command like \\foo before LIMIT." ;; \s_ matches chars with symbol syntax, \sw chars with word syntax, ;; \s. chars with punctuation syntax. We must exclude matches where ;; the first character after the \ is a reserved character and ;; should not be fontified (e.g. \, in foo\,bar or \- in foo\-bar). ;; These characters are stored in ;; `font-latex-match-simple-exclude-list'. In docTeX mode, we ;; remove "_" from this list to get correct fontification for macros ;; like `\__module_foo:nnn' (let* ((search (lambda () (TeX-re-search-forward-unescaped (concat ;; Chars directly after backslash "\\\\\\(\\s_\\|\\sw\\|\\s.\\)" ;; Start group of the following chars "\\(?:[" ;; a-zA-Z are always allowed: "a-zA-Z" ;; Allow `@' used often to redefine internals "@" ;; Check for additional characters added by AUCTeX styles (when font-latex-match-simple-include-list (mapconcat #'identity font-latex-match-simple-include-list "")) ;; End group "]\\)*") limit t))) (pos (funcall search))) (while (and pos (member (match-string 1) (if (eq major-mode 'doctex-mode) (remove "_" font-latex-match-simple-exclude-list) font-latex-match-simple-exclude-list))) (setq pos (funcall search))) pos)) (font-latex-update-font-lock) \end{verbatim} \end{document} E.g., `expl3.el' must do: (setq font-latex-match-simple-include-list '("_" ":")) Any comments welcome. Best, Arash Footnotes: [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/auctex/2019-02/msg00005.html