Find and replace smart quotes with straight quotes?

Report · Nov 05, 2009

I understand I can turn off smart quotes so that I can type straight quotes, but I need to replace hundreds of curly smart quotes with straight quotes, is there a feature that will let me do this? I am using FM8.

Thanx,

Willian

Report · Nov 05, 2009

Once you have smart quotes shut off, you should be able to use the regular find-and-replace tool.

There's some info in the help... for instance: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/8.0/help.html?content=AppendixA-Typing-in-Dialog-Boxes_3.html#1028247 Note that you have to search for the opening quotation marks and the closing marks separately.

You can also use the Windows Character Map tool to identify the characters to search for and to replace.

Report · Nov 06, 2009

I am using FM9....so I don't know if the same shortcuts apply, but this is what I found out last week.

Use the Find and Replace tool:

With smart quotes turned off and the Num Lock key turned on:

Alt0147 will give you beginning quotation marks

Alt0148 will give you ending quotation marks

In the Find box use ALT0147 or ALT0148 for the beginning or ending quotes. When you click in the box and type

one of the shortcuts the correct quote will be shown in the box.

In the replace box type the regular straight quotes on your keyboard.

I was thrilled that it would work!...course you do have to do them separately and be careful not to replace the curly quotes

that you want to leave in your document.

Hope this helps using FM8....

ls

Report · Dec 18, 2009

I think I might also post this as a new topic, but it is not necessary to turn off smart quotes in order to place straight quotes. Yes, if you try to place the straight quotes character, it will automatically convert to smart quotes, but there is a native command in Framemaker that overrides this function.

The native command is "CharStraightQuote" and you can add this to your menu, toolbar, or even the flyout menu for special symbols.

In your "menus.cfg" file near the top and about 30 lines down, you will find about a dozen entries that appear to be orphaned and not attached to an actual menu listing. These are actially for the flyout "Special Symbols" list that appears in toolbars and other locations, and includes many common symbols. For reference, the first entry in this list is:

What you can do is to add the following line anywhere within this list that you wish, and the straight quotes symbol will be available from where ever you access this flyout menu. I went further and created a whole new menu item for this and many other characters that I use frequently (i.e. File, Edit, Format, View, **Special Symbols**)

With this menu option, it doesn't matter whether smart quotes is turned on/off or what the base font is, it will place straight quotes at the insertion point.