Straight and smart "curly" quotes
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lynneconnolly
- Posts: 74
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:44 am
Straight and smart "curly" quotes
Does anybody know how I can do a bulk replace of straight quotes and apostrophes " to smart ones? ”
Lynne Connolly
Make sure “Replace ‘quotes’ with…” is checked in the “Tools | AutoCorrect Options…” dialog.
Press “Ctrl+Home” to place the insertion cursor at the top of the document.
Run the “Tools | AutoCorrect…” command.
When the AutoCorrect dialog suggests to replace “straight” with “curly” quote, press the “Accept All” button.
Press “Ctrl+Home” to place the insertion cursor at the top of the document.
Run the “Tools | AutoCorrect…” command.
When the AutoCorrect dialog suggests to replace “straight” with “curly” quote, press the “Accept All” button.
More on curly quotes
First, my thanks to Robert for the information about the AutoCorrect / All option for a bulk replacement of straight quotes with curly quotes. I was not familiar with the option.
However, an unresolved issue is that some single-quote items will not get the proper character with this method.
I have an example below.
NOTE: Unfortunately, the sans-serif font of this forum displays curly quotes as slanted glyphs, and that makes the illustration very obscure. If you are interested in this discussion, copy this whole post and paste it into Atlantis and use a font like Times New Roman. You will easily see the things that I am talking about.
In any case, here is an original "straight quotes" text, followed by some illustrations of tests that I ran.
ORIGINAL with typewriter (straight) quotes
1: Americans use "double quotes" but the British use 'single quotes'.
2: I studied C and Pascal in the '90s of the last century.
3: Let's let 'em 'ave it, boys!
4: Let 'im have it, boys!
5: Look at 'er squallin' there.
- - - - -
CORRECTED with AutoCorrect / All
(2, 3, 4, 5 contain single-quote/apostrophe errors)
1: Americans use “double quotes” but the British use ‘single quotes’.
2: I studied C and Pascal in the ‘90s of the last century.
3: Let’s let ’em ‘ave it, boys!
4: Let ‘im have it, boys!
5: Look at ‘er squallin’ there.
(Interestingly, #3 has a correct form in *let ’em*, but #4 and #5 have incorrect forms in *Let ‘im* and *at ‘er*.)
- - - - -
TRULY CORRECTED / These are the correct forms
1: Americans use “double quotes” but the British use ‘single quotes’.
2: I studied C and Pascal in the ’90s of the last century.
3: Let’s let ’em ’ave it, boys!
4: Let ’im have it, boys!
5: Look at ’er squallin’ there.
- - - - -
COMMENTS
Some of the opening single curly quotes need to be changed, because what you really need is an apostrophe, not an opening single quote. To accomplish this, you have to use a fairly simple workaround. The easiest way to look for quotation mistakes like *Let ‘im have it, boys!* is as follows.
First run the Tools > AutoCorrect and select AutoCorrect All, even though you may get some mistakes by doing this.
You can find the mistakes with a search-and-replace. Instructions for keystrokes are in < >.
To find mistakes like ‘60s, you want to find all the opening single quotes, some of which you may then need to change to an apostrophe (same as a closing single curly quote). To find ONLY the OPENING single curly quotes, you need to precede the quote mark by a space in the search box.
Open the Search/Replace with: <Ctrl H>
For Search type in: <spacebar space x 1><apostrophe>.
For Replace type in: <spacebar space x 1><code for a closing single curly quote)
The code for the closing single curly quote (apostrophe) is decimal 0146. To get that character, hold down left ALT key and type 0146 on the Numeric Keyboard. It has to be the Numeric Keyboard. If you do not have one on your computer, you have an easy way to get the character. Just copy it from a word where it has been used, as in *Let’s*, and paste it in.
Start your search. This picks up all the words that begin with a single quote. You can quickly decide if you want to change the opening single quote to a closing one (apostrophe).
NOTE: Of course, this can be horribly laborious if you have written a novel and you have used the British single-quote system for dialogue. In that situation, you may have to use another approach. Sorry, but I did not invent the stupid British system of using single quotes for ordinary dialogue.
AN ADDITIONAL PROBLEM
The other thing that gets fouled up with curly quotes is that something like *four inches* gets converted from the typewriter-correct 4" to a 4” with an ending curly quote, and that drives me crazy. I see it in things that have been professionally edited (or maybe not).
(Unfortunately, the font here, again, is a problem. The curly quote in 4” looks exactly like a double-prime glyph, but it will not look like that with other fonts.)
The best thing to do to avoid this issue is not to use the double-quote mark for inch. Instead, tweak your Autocorrect options. Add an option that converts an escaped character to a double prime for the inch symbol (an escaped character is a character that follows the backslash \). You can do this in several ways. Keystrokes are in <>.
REPLACE <\"> WITH a double prime.
REPLACE <\inch> WITH a double prime.
REPLACE <in.> WITH a double prime.
To get the double-prime character, use Insert > Symbol in Atlantis. Enter the symbol code 2033 hexadecimal. That displays the double-prime character. Press Send To Clipboard. You can then paste the double prime ″ character into the WITH part of the option.
Folks, I probably messed something up in the foregoing explanation, and maybe somebody knows an easier, more elegant way to handle the single-quote/apostrophe issue.
Happy writing!
However, an unresolved issue is that some single-quote items will not get the proper character with this method.
I have an example below.
NOTE: Unfortunately, the sans-serif font of this forum displays curly quotes as slanted glyphs, and that makes the illustration very obscure. If you are interested in this discussion, copy this whole post and paste it into Atlantis and use a font like Times New Roman. You will easily see the things that I am talking about.
In any case, here is an original "straight quotes" text, followed by some illustrations of tests that I ran.
ORIGINAL with typewriter (straight) quotes
1: Americans use "double quotes" but the British use 'single quotes'.
2: I studied C and Pascal in the '90s of the last century.
3: Let's let 'em 'ave it, boys!
4: Let 'im have it, boys!
5: Look at 'er squallin' there.
- - - - -
CORRECTED with AutoCorrect / All
(2, 3, 4, 5 contain single-quote/apostrophe errors)
1: Americans use “double quotes” but the British use ‘single quotes’.
2: I studied C and Pascal in the ‘90s of the last century.
3: Let’s let ’em ‘ave it, boys!
4: Let ‘im have it, boys!
5: Look at ‘er squallin’ there.
(Interestingly, #3 has a correct form in *let ’em*, but #4 and #5 have incorrect forms in *Let ‘im* and *at ‘er*.)
- - - - -
TRULY CORRECTED / These are the correct forms
1: Americans use “double quotes” but the British use ‘single quotes’.
2: I studied C and Pascal in the ’90s of the last century.
3: Let’s let ’em ’ave it, boys!
4: Let ’im have it, boys!
5: Look at ’er squallin’ there.
- - - - -
COMMENTS
Some of the opening single curly quotes need to be changed, because what you really need is an apostrophe, not an opening single quote. To accomplish this, you have to use a fairly simple workaround. The easiest way to look for quotation mistakes like *Let ‘im have it, boys!* is as follows.
First run the Tools > AutoCorrect and select AutoCorrect All, even though you may get some mistakes by doing this.
You can find the mistakes with a search-and-replace. Instructions for keystrokes are in < >.
To find mistakes like ‘60s, you want to find all the opening single quotes, some of which you may then need to change to an apostrophe (same as a closing single curly quote). To find ONLY the OPENING single curly quotes, you need to precede the quote mark by a space in the search box.
Open the Search/Replace with: <Ctrl H>
For Search type in: <spacebar space x 1><apostrophe>.
For Replace type in: <spacebar space x 1><code for a closing single curly quote)
The code for the closing single curly quote (apostrophe) is decimal 0146. To get that character, hold down left ALT key and type 0146 on the Numeric Keyboard. It has to be the Numeric Keyboard. If you do not have one on your computer, you have an easy way to get the character. Just copy it from a word where it has been used, as in *Let’s*, and paste it in.
Start your search. This picks up all the words that begin with a single quote. You can quickly decide if you want to change the opening single quote to a closing one (apostrophe).
NOTE: Of course, this can be horribly laborious if you have written a novel and you have used the British single-quote system for dialogue. In that situation, you may have to use another approach. Sorry, but I did not invent the stupid British system of using single quotes for ordinary dialogue.
AN ADDITIONAL PROBLEM
The other thing that gets fouled up with curly quotes is that something like *four inches* gets converted from the typewriter-correct 4" to a 4” with an ending curly quote, and that drives me crazy. I see it in things that have been professionally edited (or maybe not).
(Unfortunately, the font here, again, is a problem. The curly quote in 4” looks exactly like a double-prime glyph, but it will not look like that with other fonts.)
The best thing to do to avoid this issue is not to use the double-quote mark for inch. Instead, tweak your Autocorrect options. Add an option that converts an escaped character to a double prime for the inch symbol (an escaped character is a character that follows the backslash \). You can do this in several ways. Keystrokes are in <>.
REPLACE <\"> WITH a double prime.
REPLACE <\inch> WITH a double prime.
REPLACE <in.> WITH a double prime.
To get the double-prime character, use Insert > Symbol in Atlantis. Enter the symbol code 2033 hexadecimal. That displays the double-prime character. Press Send To Clipboard. You can then paste the double prime ″ character into the WITH part of the option.
Folks, I probably messed something up in the foregoing explanation, and maybe somebody knows an easier, more elegant way to handle the single-quote/apostrophe issue.
Happy writing!
You might want to take a look at the following articles:
Modifier letter apostrophe
Which Unicode character should represent the English apostrophe? (And why the Unicode committee is very wrong.)
And these too:
apostrophes
straight and curly quotes
To sum up, Atlantis and other word processors would have to determine if a character was meant to be an apostrophe or a quote mark. In some cases, only the human brain can do such a linguistic feat. AI has still a long way to go!
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
Modifier letter apostrophe
Which Unicode character should represent the English apostrophe? (And why the Unicode committee is very wrong.)
And these too:
apostrophes
straight and curly quotes
To sum up, Atlantis and other word processors would have to determine if a character was meant to be an apostrophe or a quote mark. In some cases, only the human brain can do such a linguistic feat. AI has still a long way to go!
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
You’ll find other topical articles at the following addresses:
Punctuation: Why is the right single quote (U+2019), and not the semantically distinct apostrophe (U+0027), the preferred apostrophe character in Unicode?
Right single apostrophe vs. apostrophe?
Common Typography Mistakes: Apostrophes Versus Quotation Marks
Punctuation – apostrophes versus quotation marks
Punctuation: Why is the right single quote (U+2019), and not the semantically distinct apostrophe (U+0027), the preferred apostrophe character in Unicode?
Right single apostrophe vs. apostrophe?
Common Typography Mistakes: Apostrophes Versus Quotation Marks
Punctuation – apostrophes versus quotation marks
Apostrophe, etc.
Robert,
Thanks for the links. I have not looked at them yet, but I will.
Of course it is very difficult for a computer algorithm to get the correct glyph in the situations that I discussed.
My main concern in this is that people are now using the single left quote when an apostrophe is the correct glyph. They hit the <'> character in a word processor and just accept whatever the result is. They either do not know what is correct, or they do not care enough to copy a single right quote and paste it over the incorrect character. In fact, all a person has to do is type the <'> character twice to get left and right glyphs next to each other; and then just delete the first one.
Happy writing, everyone!
Thanks for the links. I have not looked at them yet, but I will.
Of course it is very difficult for a computer algorithm to get the correct glyph in the situations that I discussed.
My main concern in this is that people are now using the single left quote when an apostrophe is the correct glyph. They hit the <'> character in a word processor and just accept whatever the result is. They either do not know what is correct, or they do not care enough to copy a single right quote and paste it over the incorrect character. In fact, all a person has to do is type the <'> character twice to get left and right glyphs next to each other; and then just delete the first one.
Happy writing, everyone!
Keyboards have what UNICODE calls “APOSTROPHE” or “APOSTROPHE-QUOTE” (HTML Entity 39). Hitting that key can only lead to confusion: an apostrophe is not a quote mark, and vice versa, even if they have identical looks.
To make sure you insert a proper apostrophe character, the most practical is to type “Alt+700”. This will always curl up in the right way!
Alternatively, you could add such an apostrophe to your Clip Library. It would be inserted with a double-click.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
To make sure you insert a proper apostrophe character, the most practical is to type “Alt+700”. This will always curl up in the right way!
Alternatively, you could add such an apostrophe to your Clip Library. It would be inserted with a double-click.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
A final comment
What an interesting conversation! And thanks for the information about the ALT+0700 Unicode character. I still have not read those articles for which you provided links above.
Before I let the whole matter go, I want to offer my opinion about the best practical policy.
I think that it is best to use whatever your word processor offers for curly quotes (single or double) and for the curly apostrophe. But when a word begins with an apostrophe (*we did this back in the '90s*, *have at 'im, boys*), you ought to fix it by using whatever your word processor uses for the apostrophe in a word like *don't*.
A problem with using ALT+0700 is that older fonts do not have that Unicode glyph. Sometimes I use a very nice but old font called Bitstream Charter BT. It does not have glyphs beyond decimal 255. So how do Atlantis and Word handle decimal 700 if I am using that old font? They substitute another font for the ALT+0700 apostrophe. This introduces another font, and that can raise legal concerns when you think about distribution of ebooks with embedded fonts (and maybe other legal concerns).
I have also found that even more modern fonts, Unicode fonts, do not always have the characters (glyphs) that you might expect them to have.
Finally, although it is easy to insert the decimal 700 glyph in the very few cases where it would be needed at the beginning of a word, it is more burdensome to try to use it in the great number of contractions and possessives that people use (things like *don't* and *can't* and *Albert's*). And, for consistency, you do not want to use two different kinds of apostrophes.
Happy writing!
Before I let the whole matter go, I want to offer my opinion about the best practical policy.
I think that it is best to use whatever your word processor offers for curly quotes (single or double) and for the curly apostrophe. But when a word begins with an apostrophe (*we did this back in the '90s*, *have at 'im, boys*), you ought to fix it by using whatever your word processor uses for the apostrophe in a word like *don't*.
A problem with using ALT+0700 is that older fonts do not have that Unicode glyph. Sometimes I use a very nice but old font called Bitstream Charter BT. It does not have glyphs beyond decimal 255. So how do Atlantis and Word handle decimal 700 if I am using that old font? They substitute another font for the ALT+0700 apostrophe. This introduces another font, and that can raise legal concerns when you think about distribution of ebooks with embedded fonts (and maybe other legal concerns).
I have also found that even more modern fonts, Unicode fonts, do not always have the characters (glyphs) that you might expect them to have.
Finally, although it is easy to insert the decimal 700 glyph in the very few cases where it would be needed at the beginning of a word, it is more burdensome to try to use it in the great number of contractions and possessives that people use (things like *don't* and *can't* and *Albert's*). And, for consistency, you do not want to use two different kinds of apostrophes.
Happy writing!
-
lynneconnolly
- Posts: 74
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:44 am