How to Change Straight Inch Marks to Typographer's Quotes in InDesign?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 19, 2024
5 replies
895 views

I am working on a book. When I imported the manuscript, all of the quotations were straight inch marks, not typographer's quotes. It is this way throughout the book.

When I tried to do a find/change to correct the issue, I got a message that says it couldn't find any in the document. I am looking directly at the file and there are hundreds of these marks--not a quotation mark in sight.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and how I can get the correct typographer's quotes throughout the book?

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Make sure that in preferences typpgraphers quotes are ticked.
2. make sure that of all used languages the correct quotation marks are set up in preferences > dictionary
All text must have the correct language. You set it up in paragraph styles, exceptions in character styles, avoid manually formatting.
in find and replace replace the glyph which is used as quotation mark with ". It will write the correct quotation mark depending on the used language.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Did you try the GREP find/change?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

D

default8p1qnvtuxpp8

Participant

Close any documents you have open in Indesign. Then, with Indesign still open, go to InDesign > Preferences > Type and check the box that says "Use Typographers Quotes". Then you will need to restart Indesign. Hope that helps.

D

default8p1qnvtuxpp8

Participant

Sorry, you don't have to close your document to do this. If you want it to affect ALL of your Indesign documents, then YES you will need to close the document you are working on. If you only want it to affect the document you are in, then keep it open. Also, no need to restart (unless it is being glitchy).

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

Changing the preference to "Use Typographers Quotes" will not automatically change any existing "inch" marks into typographers quotes. You will still need to Find/Change in the manner described by Steve's link and Brad's advice.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Make sure you've clicked inside the story for it to search properly In fact, you might want to search Document instead of just Story.

If you ARE inside the story, check that they actually used an "inch" mark and not something weirder like two "foot" marks. Maybe copy and paste one from the old copy into the search field, but yes, use the technique that Will describes in the thread Steve points to; it works. In fact, if you turn on Typographical quotes and simply copy and paste some text, it will convert them automatically when you paste. (Of course, this might screw up ones you actually WANT to be inch and foot marks! so watch for those)

The other caveat is that it replaces them to Typographical quotes based on the standard algorithm and it might do the wrong one if the quotation mark is in the wrong place. e.g. you can see what happens if there are errant spaces added in the copy (attached)

Also, the algorithm dpesn'rt properly deal with contractions where the apostrophe is at the beginning, like ’tis and ’80s. It sees those foot marks as an opening single quote (since it's after a space) which for a contraction is typographically incorrect. It should be an apostrophe. Those you have to do manually.