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#1 |
mostly an observer
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How to search for ellipses
For a print edition, I use a space between the dots (full stops) in an ellipsis. But for the ebook I prefer to have them closed up. But I find that when I search for . . . in Sigil I am taken to the very next sequence of any letter / space / dot / space / letter, such as d a c ("did a creditable job", e.g.).
Surely there's a way around this? |
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#2 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Change the search from Regex mode to "Normal". The "." character has special meaning in regular expressions. If you want to stay in regex mode, then escape the periods with a backslash
\.\.\. |
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#3 |
A Hairy Wizard
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With regex I put the optional space in between, and replace with the actual ellipses character: …
search: (\s*\.\s*){2,} replace: … this will find any of these: <p> ..</p> <p>...</p> <p>.. .. </p> . . . Of course you can add spaces before or after the ellipses as desired. |
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#4 | ||
Wizard
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Quote:
If anything, it should be the opposite. In print, you have full control over the font/spacing/justification/line-breaking. In ebooks, the ellipsis character is very inconsistent. (Especially when dealing with the "4-dot ellipsis".) For more info on all that, see:
Quote:
![]() I have an 11-step ellipsis "Saved Searches" I came up with years ago: Code:
Step | Search | Replace _____|_________________|____________ 1 | … | ... 2 | \.\.\.\. | . . . . 3 | \.\.\. | . . . 4 | \.\. \. | . . . 5 | \. \.\. | . . . 6 | “\. \. \.\s* | “. . . 7 | \s*\. \. \.” | . . .” 8 | <p>\. \. \.\s+ | <p>. . . 9 | \s+\. \. \.</p> | . . .</p> 10 | \. \. \. \. | . . . . 11 | \. \. \. | . . . 6+7. Attaches ellipsis + open/closing quotation marks. 8+9. Attaches ellipsis + beginning-/end-of-paragraph. 10. Find 4-dot ellipsis. 11. Find any 3-dot ellipsis that hasn't been touched yet. * * * Usage Notes Steps 1->5 I've learned you can't trust any user input. Authors accidentally use combinations of "..." + "…" within the same text. And too many times OCR, AutoCorrect, or these "Smart Punctuation" algorithms botch the ellipsis character. This helps normalize everything. Steps 6->9 Depend on a manual decision. Some authors prefer a space before/after, others prefer the ellipsis with no space.
Steps 10+11 Definitely requires case-by-case decisionmaking. Over the years, Jellby has written extensively on all the various combinations of ellipses that can occur (there's at least 5):
You can't just do a mass search/replace. You have to decide if/where you're going to use the ellipsis character + if/where it should get attached. Side Note: After this, you'd probably want to also look for two periods in a row:
This is an example.. (This is a very common typo. It even snuck into the latest book I converted.) If your book is full of links like: Code:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../Styles/stylesheet.css"/>
Hopefully that'll catch them all. And again, a case-by-case basis. The author may have meant just a period, or they may have meant an actual ellipsis. ![]() Last edited by Tex2002ans; 07-03-2021 at 11:44 PM. |
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#5 |
mostly an observer
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#6 | |
A Hairy Wizard
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There are definite issues using the "spaces between dots" technique especially when using text-to-speech or other accessibility functions:
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I understand that the actual ellipses character display changes with the font selected... but isn't that the point? Don't you want the ellipses to be internally consistent with the font being used. If it looks inconsistent, then the font wasn't designed very well, wasn't it? Personally I never use 4 dots, or ellipses plus a period, or period plus an ellipses (in a book, mind.....I get completely carried away in a post...... ![]() 1) I would completely expect the ellipses and period to look different in ANY font...they're not the same character... to prevent them from looking silly together, just don't use them together. 2) it just seems silly to use 4... why not have 5 dots..... or 6-9 dots ....... (6-9 dots could just be 3 ellipses together!) 3) and yes, some can say 4 dots is the same as ...? or ...!, but I don't have any problem ending a sentence with an ellipses Anyway, not trying to cause an argument...there are plenty of threads that do that....... just making sure people realize this isn't JUST about personal preference........ it can have accessibility impacts. Cheers! |
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#7 |
A Hairy Wizard
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#8 | ||||||||
Wizard
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Nice. Although it's really a headscratcher. We've been talking about that dropdown for years.
And you've been on Regex mode this entire time? You may want to doublecheck some of your previous books for errors. You may have accidentally unleashed a rogue regex while searching/replacing other things. Example. In Regex, the symbol: . = Any character so you may have done a search/replace for: P.T. Barnum but in Regex mode, that would look for: P + any character + T + any character + space + Barnum It's why we typically put warnings in the "Regex Examples" thread to not "Replace All". Quote:
![]() Although that regex would then miss the typo " ..When" but hopefully you have a grammarchecker or something else that catches that. ... I've spent too much of my life correcting all these ellipsis issues, so the more time I can save everyone else, the better! Quote:
And I'd say this is heavily outweighed by an ellipsis on a line by itself (bad line-breaking): Code:
I said this is an example … Quote:
For more ellipsis typography info, see Robert Bringhurst: "The Elements of Typographic Style": (Also look closely at his examples on the side.) Quote:
… should look the same as: . + . + . (Tight) . + THIN SPACE + . + THIN SPACE + . (Loose) and this: .… …. should look the same as: . + . + . + . (Tight) . + THIN SPACE + . + THIN SPACE + . + THIN SPACE + . (Loose) (In ebooks, these "rarer spaces" have many problems, so I'd avoid using them. is your safest bet.) Quote:
So ebook users fiddling around with all different types of fonts, you're going to get a mess. In Print, you have full control over the visuals, so if the font's ellipsis/kerning sucks, you can always work around it. (And manually adjust.) Quote:
When you cut text in a quotation and the quotation actually begins/ends in a period. This is why you get: …. …? …! In the European-style, this "cut text" is more easy to spot: […]. […]? […]! What causes confusion is trying to overload the ellipsis + gobble up punctuation. ![]() Side Note: I just answered this one on Reddit a month ago: /r/writing: "How do you use Ellipses with other punctuation?" The person tried to argue for a "..?" or a ".?!" (where all 3 dots merge). Another example: TeX Stack Exchange: "Typesetting exclamation+question+ellipsis (!.. ?.. ?!. !?.)" (Over the years, I've even seen some try to use a double-dot ".." instead of an ellipsis: "A..Z".) Quote:
5+ dots were used in the past to show "lots of text missing". Modern books don't really use this, but old books do. And in inconsistent fonts, the ellipsis character + 2-or-more dots looks even more ridiculous. (Hence one of the reasons why I completely normalized to PERIODS + NON-BREAKING SPACES, since it can consistently handle any # of dots + any mix of punctuation before/after + any font! And no line-breaking issues!) Quote:
All the pros/cons have been discussed many times over the years. ![]() Last edited by Tex2002ans; 07-05-2021 at 01:22 AM. |
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#9 | |||
A Hairy Wizard
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Thanks for your, quite extensive, reply!
![]() Quote:
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What is wrong with a slight space between an ellipses and a ,.?! they are different characters after all: (all of these use the ellipses character, not dots) Code:
end of a sentence. …Beginning of another. end of a sentence… Beginning of another. This has some clipped … in the middle. I wonder,… what do you think of…? Well…, you should think of…! Quote:
My point is that a decent font should be consistent with itself. The ellipses should look good and have proper size/width/spacing compared to the other characters in that font. Yes, there are "bad" fonts that make them look bad, but isn't that the beauty of ebooks? If you don't like the font you're using, you can change it to something else. If a font is internally inconsistent, then ... don't use it...! I can't force a user to think something is pretty ... and I wouldn't want to even try. I try and keep things as simple and as semantically correct as possible while letting the user determine what font they enjoy reading with. I also am trying, certainly with a long way to go, to be as accessibility conscious as I can. Even if only 42% of the devices out there say "dot" or pause before a period then I would consider that a much greater "sin" than having a slight difference in spacing between an ellipses and a .?! Again, just my .02¢ Cheers, |
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#10 | |
Wizard
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Quote:
For example: Code:
This is an example…” This is an example…. This is an example.… Code:
This is an example… ” This is an example… . This is an example. … |
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#11 | |
A Hairy Wizard
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Quote:
![]() In any case, a bad ereader that doesn't display something properly is beyond the realm of a book designer's control. If those people USING those bad ereaders actually notice this small issue...and actually care enough about it... then they can change to a different reader. Yes, there are publisher's customers out there that are uber nitpicky, and of course they want their book to look good on as many devices as possible, but the spacing between an ellipses and a ,?! probably isn't really even noticeable to the 99.99% that are NOT typesetters themselves. The sin of "bad accessibility" certainly would outweigh it in any reasonable person's mind. I think we are definitely getting into the realm of ![]() Cheers! |
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#12 | |
Guru
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In text I use . . . and . . . . Would prefer to use thinner spaces, but those allow the ellipsis to split on a linewrap. I tried all the various space entities and in ebooks, only nbsp could be depended on to be "no break". Last edited by AlanHK; 07-11-2021 at 04:41 AM. |
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#13 | |
Wizard
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Quote:
For all that info, see 2020: "Non-breaking spaces in ePUB". |
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#14 |
Bibliophagist
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My personal preference for faking ellipses is the Word Joiner ( U+2060) though you run into the same lack of support as with the Figure Space and Narrow No-Break Space.
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#15 | |
Guru
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Quote:
In my print layout I have edited the kerning between periods to about a half normal space so I just type ... and I get a nicely spaced ellipsis that does not break inside. |
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