Add advice on printing complex strings (#2446)

README.md

@@ -3583,9 +3583,9 @@ The following command will create two files, `some` and `argument.txt`:
 $ just foo "some argument.txt"
 ```
 
-The users shell will parse `"some argument.txt"` as a single argument, but when
-`just` replaces `touch {{argument}}` with `touch some argument.txt`, the quotes
-are not preserved, and `touch` will receive two arguments.
+The user's shell will parse `"some argument.txt"` as a single argument, but
+when `just` replaces `touch {{argument}}` with `touch some argument.txt`, the
+quotes are not preserved, and `touch` will receive two arguments.
 
 There are a few ways to avoid this: quoting, positional arguments, and exported
 arguments.
@@ -3910,6 +3910,38 @@ fetch:
 Given the above `justfile`, after running `just fetch`, the recipes in
 `foo.just` will be available.
 
+### Printing Complex Strings
+
+`echo` can be used to print strings, but because it processes escape sequences,
+like `\n`, and different implementations of `echo` recognize different escape
+sequences, using `printf` is often a better choice.
+
+`printf` takes a C-style format string and any number of arguments, which are
+interpolated into the format string.
+
+This can be combined with indented, triple quoted strings to emulate shell
+heredocs.
+
+Substitution complex strings into recipe bodies with `{…}` can also lead to
+trouble as it may be split by the shell into multiple arguments depending on
+the presence of whitespace and quotes. Exporting complex strings as environment
+variables and referring to them with `"$NAME"`, note the double quotes, can
+also help.
+
+Putting all this together, to print a string verbatim to standard output, with
+all its various escape sequences and quotes undisturbed:
+
+```just
+export FOO := '''
+  a complicated string with
+  some dis\tur\bi\ng escape sequences
+  and "quotes" of 'different' kinds
+'''
+
+bar:
+  printf %s "$FOO"
+```
+
 ### Alternatives and Prior Art
 
 There is no shortage of command runners! Some more or less similar alternatives