Removing smart quotes

horseyride · 03-06-2008, 11:10 AM

Is there any easy way to remove smart quotes (translate them into straight quotes) from a text file? I tried bookdesigner which cleans up lots of stuff, but it leaves those in, as far as I can tell....Is there an option I'm missing to remove that and kill em-dashes as well? thanks

JSWolf · 03-06-2008, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by horseyride

Is there any easy way to remove smart quotes (translate them into straight quotes) from a text file? I tried bookdesigner which cleans up lots of stuff, but it leaves those in, as far as I can tell....Is there an option I'm missing to remove that and kill em-dashes as well? thanks

To remove the smart quotes, just copy the quote and do a search/replace with a straight quote. Do it twice. Once for each direction. And while you are at it, might as well do a set of search/replaces for smart apostrophes as well.

HarryT · 03-06-2008, 11:23 AM

You could simply do a search and replace. I am, however, a little puzzled as to why you would want to do this. Replacing quotes is reasonable--smart quotes don't display correctly in some codepages--but you certainly should NOT be getting rid of dashes--they are a fundamental part of the book's formatting.

tompe · 03-06-2008, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

You could simply do a search and replace. I am, however, a little puzzled as to why you would want to do this. Replacing quotes is reasonable--smart quotes don't display correctly in some codepages

There are different language conventions also. It would be nice if you tagged text instead so you can choose which quote to use in the reader. For example: <q>He said <q>fish</q>!</q>

Or is smart quotes something that display quotes correctly depending on language setting?

HarryT · 03-06-2008, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

There are different language conventions also. It would be nice if you tagged text instead so you can choose which quote to use in the reader. For example: <q>He said <q>fish</q>!</q>

Or is smart quotes something that display quotes correctly depending on language setting?

"Smart quotes" are "curly quotes". Most files which use them use either UTF-8 or the Windows Latin 1 (1252) codepage. Unfortunately people who use other codepages generally won't see them displayed correctly.

JSWolf · 03-06-2008, 11:35 AM

And don't forget the curly apostrophes as well. Those can also be a problem.

But I have never heard of anyone having a problem with em dashes being there. Just a problem with them not being there.

DaleDe · 03-06-2008, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And don't forget the curly apostrophes as well. Those can also be a problem.

But I have never heard of anyone having a problem with em dashes being there. Just a problem with them not being there.

Well an emdash is certainly not in the ascii character set. It really has the same problem with certain font sets and code sets as curly apostrophes and quotes do.

Dale

HarryT · 03-06-2008, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well an emdash is certainly not in the ascii character set. It really has the same problem with certain font sets and code sets as curly apostrophes and quotes do.

Dale

It does indeed - it's in different character positions in codepage 1252 and UTF-8. That's why, I think, in plain text files it's best to do as PG do and represent it as "--". This can easily be replaced with a "real" dash on other systems. In HTML, provided one represents it as the "—" entity, there's no problem.

JSWolf · 03-06-2008, 01:08 PM

To fix em dashes, go to the search & replace (F2) and in the search line put in alt-0151 (from the keypad) and then in the replace line put in -- and it'll replace em dash with -- and you'll know when reading where the em dash was supposed to be.

03-06-2008, 11:10 AM	#1
horseyride Enthusiast Posts: 32 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2007 Device: none	Removing smart quotes Is there any easy way to remove smart quotes (translate them into straight quotes) from a text file? I tried bookdesigner which cleans up lots of stuff, but it leaves those in, as far as I can tell....Is there an option I'm missing to remove that and kill em-dashes as well? thanks

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Calibre and Smart Quotes	salasnet	Calibre	9	09-27-2010 05:32 AM
Smart Quotes	Toxaris	ePub	2	05-31-2010 11:32 AM
Smart quotes in XHTML?	MaggieScratch	ePub	12	03-28-2009 06:53 PM
BASIC program for smart quotes	Puffball	Workshop	4	01-24-2007 10:43 AM
Smart quotes in RTF?	ogghead	Sony Reader	8	01-23-2007 07:38 PM

03-06-2008, 11:23 AM	#3
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,560 Karma: 93980341 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	You could simply do a search and replace. I am, however, a little puzzled as to why you would want to do this. Replacing quotes is reasonable--smart quotes don't display correctly in some codepages--but you certainly should NOT be getting rid of dashes--they are a fundamental part of the book's formatting.

03-06-2008, 11:35 AM	#6
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 80,789 Karma: 150249619 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	And don't forget the curly apostrophes as well. Those can also be a problem. But I have never heard of anyone having a problem with em dashes being there. Just a problem with them not being there.

03-06-2008, 01:08 PM	#9
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 80,789 Karma: 150249619 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	To fix em dashes, go to the search & replace (F2) and in the search line put in alt-0151 (from the keypad) and then in the replace line put in -- and it'll replace em dash with -- and you'll know when reading where the em dash was supposed to be.

Advert

Advert