On Sun, 23 Jun 2013 05:08:25 +0100 Brian Barker <b.m.bar...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> At 22:20 22/06/2013 -0400, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote: > At 14:44 22/06/2013 -0400, Doug McGarrett wrote: > >>Now if OO and LO are so great, why can't they deal with curly > >>quotes and apostrophes in imported text? I have to go thru and fix > >>all the damned inch marks one by one by hand. WordPerfect can do > >>that automatically. Not only that, it can differentiate between > >>quote marks and real inch and foot designators. Let's see your OO/LO do > >>that! > > > >I am not sure what this is since I have never had any particular > >difficulty dealing with these things.... though I am not sure how > >one can understand that a particular single quote is an "inch mark" > >as opposed to a non-curly double quote. > > I think the reference to an "inch mark" is simply a way of > identifying your (typewriter-style) "non-curly" double quote. > > But Mr McGarrett does have a point, I think. OpenOffice Writer will > replace typed single and double quotes with what it calls custom > quotes quite efficiently as you type. But if you have existing > straight quotes in a document (perhaps in an inherited document or in > text pasted in from elsewhere), there appears to be no easy way to > apply that intelligence after the event. You could replace a > straight quote with a curly one, but you'd have to select manually > the individual cases where you needed open and close quotes: you > cannot at this stage invoke Writer's ability to use its intelligence > about this. In some other word processors (dare I mention Microsoft > Word if I promise to wash my mouth out?), you can merely replace > straight quotes with straight quotes: replacement is treated the same > way as typing, the same intelligence is invoked, and curly quotes of > the appropriate handedness are substituted en masse. > If text is set to Default Paragraph style, either entire document or a selection, with no applied direct formatting, /Format /Autocorrect /Apply or /Format /Autocorrrect /Apply and Edit Changes will apply the autocorrect options as if one were typing. Inbuilt Find and Replace will allow searching/replacing Styles. Also inbuilt Find and Replace will allow one to do a few selective searches for quotes. Leading double quotes usually occur after a paragraph mark or a space, and trailing quotes after a .?!. So some selective F&R operations can sort the single/double quotes quickly. Extension AltSearch is a more powerful Search engine (recommended). One tip: in many versions (all? I haven't checked) of OpenOffice it can be difficult (impossible?) to insert a curly quote into the Replace box from /Insert /Special Characters. I find it easiest to enter the curly single/double quotes into a short line in the document and Copy/Paste them into the Replace box. I can take the text version of War and Peace from Project Gutenberg and convert it into a completely formatted Styles based document in less than thirty minutes - what's to complain about that? Using the Find and Repace method, any missed quotes will be picked up at proof-reading stage. You don't proof read? Naughty, naughty! -- Rory O'Farrell <ofarr...@iol.ie> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
