types of speech marks + how best to edit.

cybmole · 11-27-2010, 08:54 AM

whereas a printed book will use single or double curly quotes for speech , many e-books have this style:

`Next week?'

i.e. an opening quote mark slants at 45 degrees, the matching, closing quote is vertical.

( but when I paste it from e-book to here it becomes slanted like this
`Next week?’ )

only two out of three on my keyboard ` ' but not ’ ?
i don't know their technical names.

My keyboard also has a double quote key ", but does not have curly quote pairs ?

the smarten punctuation feature in calibre does not seem to change from `' to "" ""

so : couple of questions - what format(s) for speech marks are considered to be correct, in the world of publishing, and what is the easiest route from what I now have in many e-books i,e, from `speech' to "speech" or to speech in curly quotes ?

Starson17 · 11-27-2010, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybmole

whereas a printed book will use single or double curly quotes for speech , many e-books have this style:

`Next week?'

i.e. an opening quote mark slants at 45 degrees, the matching, closing quote is vertical.

Interesting. I've never seen this. I consider it to be an error.

Quote:

( but when I paste it from e-book to here it becomes slanted like this
`Next week?’ )

That's because it's fixing the error.

Quote:

My keyboard also has a double quote key ", but does not have curly quote pairs ?

There are a limited number of keys, but many programs will autoconvert, or you can type it in from the keyboard using a code to get the characters you want.

Quote:

the smarten punctuation feature in calibre does not seem to change from `' to "" ""

It probably sees the error and ignores it. It wouldn't change to double quotes anyway, just form single quotes to smart single quotes.

Quote:

so : couple of questions - what format(s) for speech marks are considered to be correct, in the world of publishing, and what is the easiest route from what I now have in many e-books i,e, from `speech' to "speech" or to speech in curly quotes ?

I'd search and replace the vertical quote to closing smart vertical quote.

kovidgoyal · 11-27-2010, 01:51 PM

A simple search and replace to change ` to ' should do the trick for you.

11-27-2010, 08:54 AM	#1
cybmole Wizard Posts: 3,720 Karma: 1759970 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: none	types of speech marks + how best to edit. whereas a printed book will use single or double curly quotes for speech , many e-books have this style: `Next week?' i.e. an opening quote mark slants at 45 degrees, the matching, closing quote is vertical. ( but when I paste it from e-book to here it becomes slanted like this `Next week?’ ) only two out of three on my keyboard ` ' but not ’ ? i don't know their technical names. My keyboard also has a double quote key ", but does not have curly quote pairs ? the smarten punctuation feature in calibre does not seem to change from `' to "" "" so : couple of questions - what format(s) for speech marks are considered to be correct, in the world of publishing, and what is the easiest route from what I now have in many e-books i,e, from `speech' to "speech" or to speech in curly quotes ?

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11-27-2010, 01:51 PM	#3
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,850 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	A simple search and replace to change ` to ' should do the trick for you.

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