How to convert straight quotes to smart 'curly' typographer's quotes

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I would like is a way to convert UK style quotes to US style quotes because UK style quotes just look unnatural.

It is just what you are used to. I find the double quotes too big and obtrusive. But, in the end it is about the story, not the quotes actually used. If the story is good, I don't even notice the used style.

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't see the relevance of this to converting straight quotes to curly quotes. Can you elaborate?

You can search text in straight quotes using RegEx, and replace it with curly ones. Using RegEx could give you more instruments to get the text you really need and jump the other. The regex I wrote about book/article title is an example.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

You can search text in straight quotes using RegEx, and replace it with curly ones. Using RegEx could give you more instruments to get the text you really need and jump the other. The regex I wrote about book/article title is an example.

Thanks.

I strongly suspect that we're all familiar with the use of regular expressions, but unfortunately they really don't help with the fundamental problem we're addressing here. You can certainly use a regex to find a single quote at the start of a word, but the problem is knowing whether to replace it with an left or a right curly quote. How would you address that issue?

Eg, if you find the string 'ello you need to replace the straight quote with a right apostrophe (abbreviated word), whereas if you find the string 'hello you need to replace it with left apostrophe (opening speech or quotation mark).

Have you any suggestions to assist with this?

[fbrzvnrnd]

Using the example:

What the 'ell are you doin'?

and:

'Today is Thursday', he said.

It is easy to use the begin paragraph/uppercase to find all the dialogs jumping away from the 'ell.
I can try to catch all the text in straight quotes beginning with a lowercase. If there is a good % of results I can build a better Regex looking around: space before, punctuation/start of paragraph before, uppercase et ceterae.

I do not wanna say I can make a 100% find/replace work with regex, but I can reach a 99% leaving some manual working here and there.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

Using the example:



It is easy to use the begin paragraph/uppercase to find all the dialogs jumping away from the 'ell.
I can try to catch all the text in straight quotes beginning with a lowercase. If there is a good % of results I can build a better Regex looking around: space before, punctuation/start of paragraph before, uppercase et ceterae.

I do not wanna say I can make a 100% find/replace work with regex, but I can reach a 99% leaving some manual working here and there.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you can't. Not 99% by a long shot. For regular documents it can be automated, but the examples here will mess things up. They don't follow the rules, after all they could be start of a normal sentence. And, even if you could catch some cases, when another language is used the rules will differ.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

...And, even if you could catch some cases, when another language is used the rules will differ.

and even within one language there can be significant difference between dialects, as large or larger than there is between mocdfn British English and American English.

[JSWolf]

When you do a smarten punctuation, you then have to read the book and check each punctuation mark.

[fbrzvnrnd]

I'm not talking about a regex for every book. I suggest to use regex to *adapt* the regex to the contest you are working with.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When you do a smarten punctuation, you then have to read the book and check each punctuation mark.

You don't have to read the book, but you certainly have to search for apostrophes and quotation marks and check that they're all correct.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You don't have to read the book, but you certainly have to search for apostrophes and quotation marks and check that they're all correct.

True that.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

EDIT: Yes, DiapDealer's PunctuationSmarten plugin is your friend.

I second this. Or here is "Diap's Editing Toolbag" (Calibre version of the Plugin) which I use all the damn time:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=2980740

I find it to be much more helpful than Calibre's built in Smarten Punctuation because this one has options (such as don't touch ellipses, or don't touch dashes).

Side Note: My personal method is three rounds:

Round #1: Diapdealer's Toolbag, Smarten Punctuation.

Round #2: I run the book through a lot of the regex fixes (of common errors I have come across). I do my usual code cleanup + OCR fixing + everything else.

Round #3: As the final step, I run the final text through Toxaris's Dialogue Check.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Tools tend to have problems with words with initial apostrophes, particularly in books where the single apostrophe is also used for speech marks.

Yep, the automated tools do make quite a few mistakes (typically around em dashes, italics/other HTML tags, [...]).

The books I work on don't really have too many of the "'tis a jolly good day" + "'twas the night before Christmas" + "go get 'em", but I have this in my Saved Regexes:

Search: ‘(Em|em|Til|til|Tis|tis|Twas|twas)
Replace: ’\1

You can easily just append whatever words needed in there with a pipe between, and it can make it easier to find/change the Left Single Quote (wrong) quotes into Right Single Quote (Correct).

(I believe Diap's Toolbag also has an "exception" list if you wanted to take that route.)

I also have this Regex to handle years, such as "’90s":

Search: ‘([0-9])
Replace: ’\1

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I would like is a way to convert UK style quotes to US style quotes because UK style quotes just look unnatural.

I mean come on JSWolf, you can't be serious. That is just because you primarily read US material.

I suspect you already came across this the multitude of times me (and Toxaris) have posted this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotat...ious_languages

All different languages use all different types of quotation marks (High/Low, Left/Right, Quotes/Guillemets, [...]). If you read Finnish books you might be used to ”…” instead.

UK to US has no easily automated way to do it... you would have to manually replace all Left/Right Single Quotes with their Double Quote equivalents (and change all Double -> Single).

Then you try to catch a lot of the accidentally converted apostrophes like:

Search: ([a-zA-Z])”([a-z])
Replace: \1’\2

And step through and try to catch apostrophes at the end of words:

Search: ([s])”(\s)
Replace: \1’\2

And a ton more elbow grease.

I have done UK -> US quotes a handful of times, and it is brutal/boring work.

Originally Posted by Jellby

It all boils down to distinguishing between right single quote and apostrophe. Unfortunately, in Unicode they are the same character (a design mistake, I'd say).

Hmmmm... yeah this does seem to be the crux of a lot of the Smarten Punctuation issues. It would simplify a lot. :P

Side Note: On a related note, does everyone here remember the glorious Smarten Punctuation (plus other typography) discussion we had back in 2014? (My gods, how time flies):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...58#post2912458

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Side Note: My personal method is three rounds:

Round #1: Diapdealer's Toolbag, Smarten Punctuation.

Round #2: I run the book through a lot of the regex fixes (of common errors I have come across). I do my usual code cleanup + OCR fixing + everything else.

Round #3: As the final step, I run the final text through Toxaris's Dialogue Check.

Actually, my tooling also have a convert straight to smart quotation mark procedure that also fixes common mistakes for example with numbers. It is also possible to quickly run a series of S/R commands in one go (especially easy to do in the upcoming release). It seems a bit of a waste to go from HTML/ePUB to Word and back again.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Actually, my tooling also have a convert straight to smart quotation mark procedure that also fixes common mistakes for example with numbers.

Well by the time it gets to running through your Dialogue Check, there aren't many fixes...

I always save your tools for the very last pass. I take the nearly completed EPUB, use your Import EPUB and do a Dialogue Check + spellchecking pass (and do manual corrections directly in the EPUB). I don't need Word bungling up my perfect EPUB.

I must admit, I haven't tested your Smarten Quotes though (all I know is that the default Word one is DREADFUL).

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

I must admit, I haven't tested your Smarten Quotes though (all I know is that the default Word one is DREADFUL).

Well, I wouldn't call it dreadful. It is not that bad actually, you just need several fixes afterwards. I just can't understand why Microsoft does not improve it themselves.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Well, I wouldn't call it dreadful. It is not that bad actually, you just need several fixes afterwards. I just can't understand why Microsoft does not improve it themselves.

Maybe they lost the code

But if they did, the EU would probably 'order' them offer OOo, AbiWord, Wordstar and Atlantis as alternatives for Word, like Mario Monti 'ordered' them to offer alternate browsers - which they never obeyed. Mario's reward was to be parachuted into the Palazzo Chigi (Italy's 10 Downing St). He's now a Senator for Life.

There's some VBA code here that could be made smarter.

BR