Paul wrote:
> Suppose I have some text that has a lot of quoted speech in it, but it's
> supplied using standard (") straight single and double quotes.
>
> Is there some pre-processing tool that will try to convert them to
> proper curly quotes suitable for LaTeX (``) and ('')?
>
> I know it can't be done perfectly and will need manual tweaking, but
> there must be something to do most of the work.
>
> All I can think of is to use some word processor that has a "clever
> quotes" function (e.g. MS Word) and then use something like wvLatex to
> export that to LaTeX format. Or do a search and replace.
>
> Is there a command-line tool that does this using some heuristics to
> cover most areas that could be problematic?
sed, perl, python or any other scripting language would do it for you.
Here's something in python:
$ cat trial.txt
The newspaper reported "he said 'The quick brown
fox jumped over
the lazy dog' 500 times in a row and then dropped down dead".
$ python quotes.py trial.txt
The newspaper reported ``he said `The quick brown
fox jumped over
the lazy dog' 500 times in a row and then dropped down dead''.
Regards,
Angus
#! /usr/bin/env python
import sys
def usage(prog_name):
return "Usage: %s 'input text file'\n" % prog_name
def warning(message):
sys.stderr.write(message + '\n')
def error(message):
sys.stderr.write(message + '\n')
sys.exit(1)
def manipulate(filename):
doubleq = '"'
singleq = "'"
inside_double = 0
inside_single = 0
double_latex_lq = '``'
double_latex_rq = "''"
single_latex_lq = '`'
single_latex_rq = "'"
try:
output = []
for line in open(filename, 'r').readlines():
for c in line:
if c == doubleq:
if not inside_double:
output.append(double_latex_lq)
inside_double = 1
else:
output.append(double_latex_rq)
inside_double = 0
elif c == singleq:
if not inside_single:
output.append(single_latex_lq)
inside_single = 1
else:
output.append(single_latex_rq)
inside_single = 0
else:
output.append(c)
return ''.join(output)
except:
warning('Unable to read %s' % filename)
return None
def main(argv):
if len(argv) != 2:
error(usage(argv[0]))
input_file = argv[1]
manipulated_text = manipulate(input_file)
if manipulated_text != None:
print manipulated_text,
if __name__ == "__main__":
main(sys.argv)
