How to find and replace text?

JLID10 · 02-10-2020, 05:58 PM

Due to some issues with my ereader, I have to format the quote marks on my ebooks to be straight (') and not curly (’). Some of my ebooks have the curly quote marks (’) by default, and I am wondering if there is a quick way in calibre to find and replace all of the curly quotes with straight ones. I noticed there is a tool called "smarten punctuation" but it does the opposite of what I need it to do.

Any ideas?

hobnail · 02-10-2020, 06:17 PM

Select the book in Calibre. Tap the t key to open it in the editor. In the editor in the left column double click on the file for the first chapter where you want it to start; it will fix all following chapters as well. In the big pane where the chapter contents is find the first quote and drag over it to select it (and only it). Then do control F and that will bring up the search and replace box below. The quote you selected will be filled in in the Find: box. In the Replace: box type in the replacement quote. In the mode line below change the drop down to All text files; the third drop down should be Down. Click on the Replace All button. Repeat for the other quote.

Keep your fingers crossed and hope it doesn't screw anything up in the html header at the top; the stuff with angle brackets.

JLID10 · 02-10-2020, 07:06 PM

Worked, thank you

Tex2002ans · 02-13-2020, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JLID10

I am wondering if there is a quick way in calibre to find and replace all of the curly quotes with straight ones. I noticed there is a tool called "smarten punctuation" but it does the opposite of what I need it to do.

Also, if you're doing a Calibre conversion, under Look & Feel > Text, there's a little checkbox for UnSmarten Punctuation.

That will convert your book and change all smart quotes into their dumb equivalents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JLID10

Due to some issues with my ereader, I have to format the quote marks on my ebooks to be straight (') and not curly (’).

May I ask what the exact issue is?

JLID10 · 02-14-2020, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

May I ask what the exact issue is?

The ereader (supernote) is primarily used in Chinese and Japanese so there's still a few bugs with the english version. For some reason theres always a space after every smart apostrophe or quote mark, it started getting kind of annoying so I decided to figure out some way to fix it.

Tex2002ans · 02-14-2020, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JLID10

For some reason theres always a space after every smart apostrophe or quote mark, it started getting kind of annoying so I decided to figure out some way to fix it.

Thanks for the picture.

Are your books marked with the proper language lang + xml:lang in the HTML?

Code:

<html lang="en" xml:lang="en">

Is your book marked as English in the EPUB metadata? (dc:language "en")

And what exact ereader is this?

Does it happen if you embed/use a different font to display your ebook?

Quote:

Originally Posted by JLID10

The ereader (supernote) is primarily used in Chinese and Japanese so there's still a few bugs with the english version.

Hmmmm... it seems like the font could be accidentally rendering it as a full-width character.

For example, see Wikipedia article on "Chinese Punctiaton":

Quote:

In Simplified Chinese, the European-style quotation marks are always used in horizontal text. Here, single quotation marks are used when embedded within double quotation marks: “…‘…’…”. These quotation marks are fullwidth in printed matter but share the same codepoints as the European quotation marks in Unicode, so they require a Chinese-language font to be displayed correctly.

or this bug in Word:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...9b31bf5&page=6

I remember seeing LibreOffice locale bugs about similar things over the years too. If I remember correctly, it's usually something along these lines:

"Computer/OS/Program set to Asian language, trying to type book in English. Program/Font is still making Asian typography assumptions."

Technical Note: It could also be built into the OpenType fonts in your device itself... there are OpenType features like:

Quote:

fwid = Full Widths: Substitutes proportionally spaced character with full-width versions (esp. for Latin letters within Chinese)

Also see Microsoft's OpenType fwid explanation:

Spoiler:

which is why I suggest embedding a different font and seeing if that works.

JLID10 · 02-14-2020, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

And what exact ereader is this?

Thanks for the info. Here's the website of the product. I actually contacted them and they said they would create a new font on the device that would fix the issue by the end of the month. For now it's easy enough just to unsmarten the punctuation because it fixes the spacing. Changing the font in Calibre doesn't seem to affect anything because the device seems to use its own fonts. I'll keep experimenting, I'm still very new to editing ebooks and understanding the html and such.

02-10-2020, 05:58 PM	#1
JLID10 Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2020 Device: Supernote A6	How to find and replace text? Due to some issues with my ereader, I have to format the quote marks on my ebooks to be straight (') and not curly (’). Some of my ebooks have the curly quote marks (’) by default, and I am wondering if there is a quick way in calibre to find and replace all of the curly quotes with straight ones. I noticed there is a tool called "smarten punctuation" but it does the opposite of what I need it to do. Any ideas?

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02-10-2020, 06:17 PM	#2
hobnail Running with scissors Posts: 1,552 Karma: 14325282 Join Date: Nov 2019 Device: none	Select the book in Calibre. Tap the t key to open it in the editor. In the editor in the left column double click on the file for the first chapter where you want it to start; it will fix all following chapters as well. In the big pane where the chapter contents is find the first quote and drag over it to select it (and only it). Then do control F and that will bring up the search and replace box below. The quote you selected will be filled in in the Find: box. In the Replace: box type in the replacement quote. In the mode line below change the drop down to All text files; the third drop down should be Down. Click on the Replace All button. Repeat for the other quote. Keep your fingers crossed and hope it doesn't screw anything up in the html header at the top; the stuff with angle brackets.

02-10-2020, 07:06 PM	#3
JLID10 Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2020 Device: Supernote A6	Worked, thank you

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