Funny looking quotation marks

[Novasea]

I have a document in rtf format. It was originally in .lit and I converted it to .rft using ABC Amber Lit Converter.

In both the original .lit format and in the .rtf format the quotation marks are "inverted" (for lack of a better word)

An example would be.

,, I don't like carrots."

The ,, being the first quotation marks. They are on the bottom...and the second set of marks are where they should be.

I have no idea what might cause this and have been flying by the seat of my pants trying to fix it.

Has anyone come across this before and if so, how did you fix it?

Thanking you in advance,

Katie

[texasnightowl]

I haven't come across that, but since it is an rtf file, I would open it in MS Word and do a search and replace to replace that symbol/sequence with regular quotes.

[Novasea]

I tried that. I noticed the "funny" quotation marks in the .lit so I converted to .rtf to try to correct it. I couldn't find a symbol in the find and replace that matched the inverted quotation marks. I tried using ,, (two commas) but that didn't work. They are actual quotation marks..but are in the wrong place. Very strange. And now, since I can't figure it out, I am more determined than ever to do just that!! I should know better than to start these things so late at night!

I was wondering if the original document could have been translated from a language other than English.

I would not even know how to make one quotation mark appear lower than the other.

I thought perhaps it had to do with upper versus lower case ...but that didn't pan out.


Thank you very much for your reply...I appreciate it.

Katie

[texasnightowl]

Can you highlight and cut and paste them into the search box?

[pdurrant]

Different languages have different conventions for quotation marks.

English dos it the right way, of course. Dutch, among others, does it the way you describe.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_quotes

for (probably accurate) details

Originally Posted by Novasea

I have a document in rtf format. It was originally in .lit and I converted it to .rft using ABC Amber Lit Converter.

In both the original .lit format and in the .rtf format the quotation marks are "inverted" (for lack of a better word)

An example would be.

,, I don't like carrots."

The ,, being the first quotation marks. They are on the bottom...and the second set of marks are where they should be.

I have no idea what might cause this and have been flying by the seat of my pants trying to fix it.

Has anyone come across this before and if so, how did you fix it?

Thanking you in advance,

Katie

[RCR]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

Can you highlight and cut and paste them into the search box?

Novasea, I think you'll find texasnightowl is right. Just highlight the little critters and in the "find and replace" dialog, put normal quotes in the replace field.

It also works for the little boxes and other odd symbols that show up when you convert to txt or rtf. Highlight the symbol, and use "find and replace" with the "replace" field blank to get rid of them.

[Novasea]

I agree that texasnightowl is right. However, when I highlight the first quotation mark (the "lower" one) it appears in the find and replace mark as a normal quotation mark...up where it belongs. If I select to replace it with a quotation mark, it does just that. But replaces it with a quotation mark in the same place..lower.

I checked out the info pdurrant. It was very helpful and cleared up as to why the marks are they way they are.

I did a quick Google to try to find out how to change the quotation marks from one languages format to another. If I find anything I will give it a try.

I am pasting a small portion of the text to show what they look like.
Thank you all for your help. It is appreciated.

Horse Guards were the headquarters of the army and it was plain Hogan believed Christopher came from somewhere altogether more sinister. „The world is a convoluted place, Richard,” he had explained, „and the Foreign Office believes that we soldiers are clumsy fellows, so they like to have their own people on the ground to patch up our mistakes. And, of course, to find things out.” Which was what Lieutenant Colonel Christopher appeared to be doing: finding things out. „He says he’s mapping their minds,” Hogan had mused, „and what I think he means by that is discovering whether Portugal is worth defending. Whether they’ll fight. And when he knows, he’ll tell the Foreign Office before he tells General Cradock.” „Of course it’s worth defending,”


Katie

[Jellby]

Maybe the document is set up with another language (German, Dutch...)?

[Novasea]

I ran the .lit through Book Designer...which I had never used before...and all of the quotation marks were fixed!

Thank you all again for your input.

Katie

[cheeto81]

I had the same problem...i was editing a native word doc...i found on the review table, the language for "set proofing language" was set to german for some reason....changed it to US english and BAM! quotes work