Gregg's Nearly Interminable Adventures in Linux Land

[eschwartz]

@Gregg,

There is a sticky in the Sigil forum where people ask for and discuss regexes. Another sticky is in the calibre editor forum, with an emphasis on function-replace mode.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by avantman42

All the ones I use are in the article. I think the reason it isn't working for you is that the web page has opening quotation marks - you'll need to use closing quotation marks.

Hey Russell.

When I do this:

[.,]”

I get

,"

and

."

What I'm looking to get is

".

or

",

Can you give me the expression to get that?

Thanks

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Well, you'd never think that that would be a problem, but sometimes you really do want a double word. I just used one. See? Your automatic replace probably took that out. I hope maybe you have a previous version, and can go back and do a manual replace instead!

Deb, I didn't do a universal auto replace. I went situation by situation. If it was a legitimate double word I kept it. And I checked that the replacing was working properly.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by avantman42

That's exactly why I do manual replacements in a manuscript. I frequently use RegExp replacements in code, but never in English. There are just too many edge cases and exceptions to rules.

Yeah, from now on I'm a manual-er.

A couple things I gleaned from a Writer's Digest article.

1) If you have auto completion enabled (esp. if you're typing fast) it may complete the wrong word than the one you intended.

2) If you do "add to dictionary" (esp. if you're typing fast LOL) and the word you add is mispelled, well, then of course the spell checker will not catch it

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

@Gregg,

There is a sticky in the Sigil forum where people ask for and discuss regexes. Another sticky is in the calibre editor forum, with an emphasis on function-replace mode.

Thanks eschwartz. That's very helpful. Two questions:

1) Are the searches and replacements given in the two forum stickies applicable to Sigil and LibreOffice (and Calibre, for that matter)?

2) It's okay to ask questions in the Sigil sticky, right? (But not in the Calibre one.)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks eschwartz. That's very helpful. Two questions:

1) Are the searches and replacements given in the two forum stickies applicable to Sigil and LibreOffice (and Calibre, for that matter)?

Mostly, yes. In certain edge cases it becomes relevant that e.g. Sigil uses PCRE and calibre uses the python brand of regex, but you really don't have to worry about advanced usage like that.

2) It's okay to ask questions in the Sigil sticky, right? (But not in the Calibre one.)

You can ask in either place, but by convention I'd go for the Sigil sticky. It's been around longer and more people watch it.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

What I'm looking to get is

".

or

",

Can you give me the expression to get that?

Yes:

"[.,]

That should match speech marks (if you're using smart quotes, be sure to use the correct type) followed by a dot or a comma.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

1) If you have auto completion enabled (esp. if you're typing fast) it may complete the wrong word than the one you intended.

I always turn auto complete off. I've never liked it. I'd rather see my mistakes so that I can learn from them.

[arjaybe]

As long as we're talking about libreoffice . . .

When I make corrections in the ODT, it shows up in the CSS in Calibre editor. For example, if I correct "teh" to "the" in libreoffice, then convert the document in Calibre, it shows in the CSS like this: <span>the</span>. There are variations in which it occurs in the middle of the word. I'm guessing that it's because libreoffice retains things for versioning or something. Does anyone know what's causing this and whether there's a setting I can use to get rid of it?

[badgoodDeb]

Oh, maybe THAT's the stuff that Hitch complains about, and that is driving her crazy!! (She prepares ebooks for a living.)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Mostly, yes. In certain edge cases it becomes relevant that e.g. Sigil uses PCRE and calibre uses the python brand of regex, but you really don't have to worry about advanced usage like that.



You can ask in either place, but by convention I'd go for the Sigil sticky. It's been around longer and more people watch it.

Thanks eschwartz.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Yes:

"[.,]

That should match speech marks (if you're using smart quotes, be sure to use the correct type) followed by a dot or a comma.

Hey Russell. I must be doing something wrong. I put a period before and after a sentence. (They are on separate lines.)

.“Are you excited now?”

“Ms. Tate.”.

Then I did:

“[.,].

and it brings up this again:

“..

When I do

”[.,].

it brings up nothing.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by avantman42

I always turn auto complete off. I've never liked it. I'd rather see my mistakes so that I can learn from them.

I turned off the auto complete, but in the "auto correct" tab there is "replace." Do you think that should be turned off too? And if so, how?

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

As long as we're talking about libreoffice . . .

When I make corrections in the ODT, it shows up in the CSS in Calibre editor. For example, if I correct "teh" to "the" in libreoffice, then convert the document in Calibre, it shows in the CSS like this: <span>the</span>. There are variations in which it occurs in the middle of the word. I'm guessing that it's because libreoffice retains things for versioning or something. Does anyone know what's causing this and whether there's a setting I can use to get rid of it?

Yuck. I hope that doesn't happen in Sigil. It's been so long since I've formatted a book, I can't even remember if I've done one with an .odt doc. Oh well. The two I have now are in .odt. I'll soon find out.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey Russell. I must be doing something wrong. I put a period before and after a sentence. (They are on separate lines.)

I'm confused. Why have you added an extra dot after the square brackets?

It works for me (see screenshot 1). If it isn't working, it might be because you're using smart quotes and you're searching for the wrong type of quote mark. (I don't use smart quotes).

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I turned off the auto complete, but in the "auto correct" tab there is "replace." Do you think that should be turned off too? And if so, how?

I turn it off, but it's really a personal preference thing. If you want to turn it off, go to Tools -> AutoCorrect Options. Go to the Options tab and uncheck the two boxes to the left of Use replacement table. If you're really paranoid, you can also delete all the entries on the Replace tab. Personally, I uncheck everything on the Options tab (see screenshot 2), because I don't want it to correct anything.