|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
12-04-2020, 12:51 PM | #16 | |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
Posts: 11,462
Karma: 158448243
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
|
Quote:
We see so many books here, both US and UK/CAN/NZ, OZ, that I'm at the point where I almost have to stop and think. What's vexing in the US is that it's not consistent here. The "rule" isn't the same for semi-colons, colons, questions marks, exclamation marks and who the frack knows for "interrobangs." (A solution in search of a problem...) Hitch |
|
12-04-2020, 04:17 PM | #17 | |
Guru
Posts: 878
Karma: 2457540
Join Date: Nov 2011
Device: none
|
Quote:
I believe the younger generation has taken a dislike to the full stop. (That's period, for colonials. Though why you'd re-name a punctuation mark after a feminine inconvenience again escapes me.) |
|
Advert | |
|
12-04-2020, 04:29 PM | #18 |
Resident Curmudgeon
Posts: 74,037
Karma: 129333114
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
|
What we need to do world wide is get rid of single quotes for speech and make them double quotes and that includes any other country that uses different punctuation. The UK (IMHO) is using obsolete single quotes for a lot of books.
|
12-04-2020, 11:49 PM | #19 | |
Bibliophagist
Posts: 35,513
Karma: 145557716
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Vancouver
Device: Kobo Sage, Forma, Clara HD, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos
|
Quote:
And if we get rid of single quotes, what do we use to signify an embedded quote? My dad said “Franklin D. Roosevelt opened his first inaugural address with the chilling words: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”” My dad said “Franklin D. Roosevelt opened his first inaugural address with the chilling words: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’” Perhaps a contest to generate the quotes version of the eats shoots and leaves sentence? Edit: Since this discussion has nothing to do with ebooks, I would suggest moving it to the Lounge if you wish to continue. Last edited by DNSB; 12-05-2020 at 12:11 AM. Reason: Edit: Move to Lounge suggested |
|
12-05-2020, 04:45 AM | #20 |
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Karma: 10
Join Date: Dec 2020
Device: paperback
|
thank you Tex2002ans for taking the time to give a detailed reply! so im reading light novels that are quite long (1000 chapters+). They consist of about 50% dialogue 50% narration and thought. Sometimes there are unnecessary narrations(repeated explanations) while the dialogue is always important. So when i want to skim the unnecessary parts and reach the dialogue, having them boldened makes it better.
I got the idea from an epub that alrdy had dialogue boldened which made things much easier. so i do have calibre, but no other program(im not a programmer either). Could you kindly tell me what programs to use and how to do such a thing? |
Advert | |
|
12-05-2020, 08:19 AM | #21 | |
the rook, bossing Never.
Posts: 11,171
Karma: 85874891
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Ireland
Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper11
|
Quote:
Sadly the ’ symbol is closing quote, possessive indication and missing letter(s) indication. Some missing letter indications can be at the start of a word and ‘smart quotes’ messes that. Also Irish and Scottish names like O'Neill, which is really for ‘ui’, and it's often incorrectly used for feet or hours, a single prime or at worst italic straight quote should be used. It's totally lazy having ebooks and even paper books using " and ' for quotes. Those generally only belong in programming or typewriters, though the ' can be used in transliteration of words to English, the ’ is sometimes incorrectly used for that. We use double quotes for outer level of speech but single quotes if it's a meta occurrence like ‘A’ is the first letter of the Roman-Latin alphabet. Edit: I don't see why French and about 18 other countries should drop «and», nor others drop „and“, also used by many countries. Nested quotes vary by country too. Welsh and Scottish allegedly use single quote outer, I suspect it varies. Irish is like UK English, it can use either system, though the double quote outer is common. Wikipedia is overly dogmatic and inaccurate on the Quotation Mark, but the English Wikipedia is highly USA centric. Last edited by Quoth; 12-05-2020 at 08:33 AM. Reason: Extra thought |
|
12-05-2020, 09:12 AM | #22 |
Addict
Posts: 206
Karma: 547516
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Berlin, Germany
Device: KObo Clara, Kobo Aura, PRS-T1, PB602, CyBook Gen3
|
You have a couple of ways to smarten the punctuation:
- In Calibre both 'Polish' and 'Update Epub' can smarten punctuation - In the Calibre editor you can get a plug in for smarten punctuation - you can use the conversion, but this will change the css in the book, too For the actual changes the first sugestion from Tex should work in most cases. Last edited by Sunlite; 12-05-2020 at 09:13 AM. Reason: spelling |
12-06-2020, 02:50 AM | #23 | ||||
Wizard
Posts: 2,297
Karma: 12126329
Join Date: Jul 2012
Device: Kobo Forma, Nook
|
Quote:
Quote:
Note: MAKE SURE YOU SAVE A BACKUP COPY of your book. Regular expression are very powerful (and can completely break your book if you do them wrong). * * * 1. Open Calibre. 2. Right-Click the book's title in the list, then press Edit Book. This will open up Calibre's built-in ebook editor. 3. Press Ctrl+F to pop up the Find/Replace. 4. Below the Find/Replace textboxes, you should see 3 dropdowns and 2 checkboxes: Mode: [Normal] + [All Text Files] + [Down] Case Sensitive + Wrap Change Mode to Regex. 5. Insert this regular expression in the boxes: Search: (“[^”<]+”) Replace: <b>\1</b> 6. DO NOT press "Replace All" yet. Test your Regular Expression on a small set first: Press "Find" to see if it highlights the correct text. Press "Replace". Make sure it does what you want. Then test again. If it looks like it's working, then you can "Replace All". Note: If anything goes seriously wrong, you can always Edit > Undo or Edit > Revert. Or as a last resort, go back to your original copy... you did make a backup, didn't you? Quote:
Quote:
But thanks for giving me the use-case. |
||||
12-06-2020, 08:22 AM | #24 |
Guru
Posts: 878
Karma: 2457540
Join Date: Nov 2011
Device: none
|
I think you under-estimate your brain power. It's not hard to skim a paragraph and pick out the dialogue. Those inverted commas surrounding it are a good clue.
And read better books! |
12-06-2020, 04:56 PM | #25 | |
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Karma: 10
Join Date: Dec 2020
Device: paperback
|
Quote:
|
|
12-21-2020, 08:17 PM | #26 |
Guru
Posts: 668
Karma: 929286
Join Date: Apr 2014
Device: PW-3, iPad, Android phone
|
That will work for most cases. But not if a speech goes over several paragraphs. Then only the final para has a close quote. In that case the <b> codes will overlap the <p> and you'll have a syntax error. Don't know about Calibre, but in Sigil, F7 check will list all these and you can fix them manually by adding </b> to the end of paras and <b> to the opening quotes of intermediate ones. I can't think of a way to completely automate this. I'd just do Search: “ Replace: <b>“ Search: ” Replace: ”</b> That will also screw up with extended speech, but simpler to fix as you just have to add closing </b> to intermediates paras. |
12-21-2020, 10:07 PM | #27 | ||
Wizard
Posts: 2,297
Karma: 12126329
Join Date: Jul 2012
Device: Kobo Forma, Nook
|
Quote:
So if you had an extended speech, my Regex would see:
As noted, mine also wouldn't work with any sort of formatting inside the quotes (<i>, <b>, <span>, etc.). It's just a very dumb, very quick, Regex... not meant to cover every case in the book, just the vast majority of "easy" cases. Mine also wouldn't introduce any syntax errors... where a mass replace like you're suggesting has a high probability. (ESPECIALLY since wrong/mismatched quotations are where a huge minority of typos are introduced, even in fully proofed/published books. [See discussion on Toxaris's EPUB Tools > Dialogue Check.]) Quote:
Let's say mine covers 95% of the normal cases, and misses the 5% extended speeches. But it replaces it in a single stroke. Yours might cover "100%" of the cases, but then you have to spend time manually correcting 5%. |
||
12-21-2020, 10:27 PM | #28 | ||
Guru
Posts: 668
Karma: 929286
Join Date: Apr 2014
Device: PW-3, iPad, Android phone
|
Quote:
Reminds me of the "red letter" Bibles, where the words of Jesus are printed red. (Note that in the KJV, at least, they don't use quote marks.) Quote:
When I convert a print book to ebook, I often discover errors. If the print version has not been actually printed yet, I can fix that too. I often do S&R that I know will make some errors, and then use the syntax error check to find the edge cases. Last edited by AlanHK; 12-21-2020 at 10:36 PM. |
||
12-22-2020, 04:41 PM | #29 |
the rook, bossing Never.
Posts: 11,171
Karma: 85874891
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Ireland
Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper11
|
I find those red letter editions a pain to read. Also they are a much later report of of what he said, probably in Aramaic, written down in a particular Greek dialect (not the same as Classical or Modern) and then translated to Latin. Then the KJV translated the Greek with the help of the Latin, but into a sort of religious English that wasn't ever really used for other books or speech. The current KJV isn't even that original KJV.
Those Red Letter editions were proofed and set by hand. I'd certainly not want to read bolded dialogue, but good luck on the computer assisted formatting and human proofing to do it for your own use! |
12-29-2020, 08:50 PM | #30 | ||
Guru
Posts: 668
Karma: 929286
Join Date: Apr 2014
Device: PW-3, iPad, Android phone
|
Quote:
If published as a single volume, should have all the recaps edited out. That would be a better enhancement than bolding speech. Might ask the writer(s) if they want that, it might make a saleable book out of it. I think Twilight started as online fanfic... |
||
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Best method to edit body of .prc/.mobi files? | Skydog | Kindle Formats | 0 | 12-25-2009 04:29 PM |