Curly quotes

[m5heath]

I'm using Acrobat 2024 and I can't find the preference setting for using curly quotes when editing a pdf document. Can anyone enlighten me?

[try67 · Accepted solution]

There's no such setting.

[m5heath]

Thanks for your response - now I know. I do find that an extraordinary omission. I am editing a number of pdf docs and when I type a double quote of course I get the standard two vertical marks. I then have to use Alt+0147 etc which is ludicrously inefficient. Sigh.

[gary_sc]

For the record, on a Mac (on a US keyboard), a single curly quote to start is Option-] and to close is Shift-Option-]. For double curly quotes to start, it's Option-[ and for closing quotes, it's Shift-Option-[

[try67]

Also for the record, Acrobat is not a word editing application, and PDF files were not meant to be edited in this way, which is why such features are not available in it.

[m5heath]

Oh come on! The Acrobat app provides extensive text editing facilities so the fact that there isn't a means of choosing default quotes is an omission - plain and simple.

[JR Boulay]

"I then have to use Alt+0147 etc which is ludicrously inefficient."

Can't you copy-paste the quotes?

[m5heath]

Of course I could, but if you are editing a pdf book where various pages have missing typographer's quotes, you would often be using copy paste for other text. It can be done but I am looking for convenience in an expensive and otherwise capable app.

[gary_sc]

I have a question for you, @m5heath, if curly quotes are so important, why didn't you set them in the original document? As @try67  pointed out, Acrobat is neither a word-processing application or a page layout application. Ostensibly, the application that set this book was one of those two. If you had printed out this book, would you be angered that the printer couldn't have changed the quotes to curly quotes?

Seriously, one of the big issues that Adobe has presented is to advertise the extent to which one can "edit" a PDF. I remember back in the early days of Twitter, a young lady wrote a novel on Twitter. While I admire her diligence, I do question her choice of tools. 

Yes, one can change the date or fix the spelling of a name, but extensive editing is unrealistic in a PDF with Acrobat. Additionally, one of the long-standing limitations of Acrobat is to search and replace. This is shown when correcting words after OCRing a document. If you see a mistake in the OCR occurring repeatedly, there is no way to "fix all." But when doing this in either Word or InDesign, it is a few moments and done. Sadly, for this capability to exist in Acrobat, it would probably require a major rewrite of the application. With all of the other issues that Acrobat has, this is probably not on the top of their "to do" list.

[m5heath]

My example was a book written in 1936 and OCRd so I was not in  position set anything out in the original document. I am not expecting acrobat to be a word processing document and I get your point about the extent of editing and search and replace. But I am a coder myself and I do not accept that allowing a choice of quotes as a preference requires a major rewrite of the application. It could and should have been done 10 years ago in my view. However, I see I am not getting much sympathy so I will leave it there but I suspect the engineers have probably become a bit complacent. 

[gary_sc]

Hi, @m5heath, for the record, it would have helped us to know what you were working with.

FWIW, your comment about adding this feature ten years ago reminds me of when is the best time to plant a tree: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today." 

All that notwithstanding, as has already been stated, Acrobat does not have this functionality. However, since this book was written in 1936, and you've OCRed the book, why not export it into Word and fix all of the quote marks, as well as all of the other glitches that occur with OCRing?

Best of luck whatever you do with this.

[m5heath]

Well again of course I could - but wouldn't it be more convenient if I didn't have to for such a relatively small edit.

[gary_sc]

Perhaps, @m5heath, but I suggest you copy from the PDF one page of content and paste that into Word. Then, start to look at all of the red lines under the text. Look for strange changes in the fonts and other anomalies. Look for hyphenated words that are now two misspelled words. 

So, yes. If all you are intending to do are the quotes, it is trivial. But if you get involved in fixing a lot of the other issues, it will save you a lot of time.

But then again, maybe straight quotes are not so bad after all... :>)

[m5heath]

Actually I am bypassing the irritating shortcomings of acrobat by using Autohotkey and setting up shortcuts for all necessary characters - much quicker once set up.

[gary_sc]

sounds great!

[JR Boulay]

Not so long ago Adobe added a tool for editing PDFs in Adobe Express directly from Acrobat, but it seems to have disappeared.

You could, however, try editing the PDF directly with Adobe Express (or with Acrobat On Line), which might be easier (I haven't tested it).

[m5heath]

Thanks but fiddling about with different apps adds inconvenience. Acrobat is excellent except for this one omission which I have dealt with using Autohotkey.