How to globally change straight double quotes to curly open and close?

[SnowshoeLaneLOL]

I am editing with InDesign (5.5) some documents created by others. I suddenly noticed that the double quote marks were straight, not curly, in one document and Find/Change does not seem to offer and option to distiguish the open (left) double quote mark from the right (close) when starting with double straight quotes. Any suggestions?

And--unrelated--why is so hard to get to a page where you can actually post a question?

Thanks!

Jill

[Peter Spier]

First thing, if you open the file and go to preferences (Edit > Prefernces... on Windows, InDesign > Preferences... on Mac), is the Enable Typographers Quotes  box checked in the Type section?

[SnowshoeLaneLOL]

That I did figure out from the HElp files--but (unfortunately) it won't change the quote marks already in the file. But, I learned something new!

[Willi Adelberger]

Find & Replace

Find " and replace all with "

Find ' and replace all with '

It will detect opening and closing quotations automatically.

In German you would have to take care as the closing apostrophe ‘ and the missing letter sign ’ are different and therefore you have to watch all ' replacements by hand.

[samar02]

Since the position of a double quotation mark determines its shape, it is easiest to use GREP with Find/Change. You can (1) find a straight quotation mark at the beginning of a word/phrase and change it to left quotation marks, and then (2) find a straight quotation mark at the end of a word/phrase and change it to right quotation marks.

(1)

Find what:

~"([\l\u\)[:punct:]])

This finds a straight quotation mark in front of any character or punctuation.

Change to:

\x{201C}$1

This puts a left quotation marks in front of what was behind the straight quotation mark.

(2)

Find what:

([\l\u\)[:punct:]])~"

This finds a straight quotation mark behind any character or punctuation.

Change to:

$1\x{201D}

This puts a left quotation mark behind what was behind the straight quotation mark.

I would find/change the first hits one at a time, and when you are confident that it works for your documents, go ahead and Change All.

[Peter Spier]

Samar,

While your thinking is sound, the execution probably isn't. The position of close quotations relative to punctuation is hightly dependent on the language conventions as well as the type of words in use. In US English, for example, most style manuals will tell you that periods and commas are always inside the quotes unless you are quoting from a foreign source where the convention is that punctuation goes outside the quotes or you are using a term, such as in a coding manual, where placing the puctuation inside might cause confusion. Other types of puctuation, such as question marks and exclamation points, would normally fall outside the quote, and parentheses, brackets, braces, dashes, etc. might fall either in or out of the quote.

I'd be more inclined to look for whitespace preceding a quote mark, or a quote mark at the beginning of a paragagraph (I think you need two searches to do this) and repalce the quote mark with an open curly quote, then look for other straight quotes and replace with a close curly quote, but Im not sure that's foolproof either.

[SnowshoeLaneLOL]

Fortunately, I think Samar02's suggestion will work as I am using US English punctuation style. I'll post back if it doesn't work out just for future reference.

Jill

[Peter Spier]

It is going to find the end quote mark in front of a question mark, among other things, and change it to an open quote on that first query.

[SJRiegel]

It may be even simpler. If you change your preferences to Typographers quotes, and then to a regular change from " to ", (straight quote to straight quote) the new marks will be placed as correct typographers’ quotes. (Of course, if you have used any of these for inch and foot marks, you will have to go back a change the preference to fix them.)

[SnowshoeLaneLOL]

SRiegel;;

I didn't try that yet, but I saved the tip for future reference. Thank you.

[SnowshoeLaneLOL]

Samar02--

Perfect. I had tried using an "any character" wildcard, but that didn't work at all. I knew I needed to distinquish left and right (and possibly use GREP to do it), but I didn't know how to construct the pattern.

Thanks so much for the detailed information--I'm off to put it to the test. You guys are the best!

Jill

[samar02]

This will probably be better:

(1)

Find what:

~"([\w]([[:punct:]])?)

This finds a straight quotation mark in front of any letter or digit that may be followed by a punctuation character.

Change to:

\x{201C}$1

This puts a left quotation marks in front of what was behind the straight quotation mark.

(2)

Find what:

([\w]([[:punct:]])?)~"

This finds a straight quotation mark behind any letter or digit that may be followed by a punctuation character.

Change to:

$1\x{201D}

This puts a left quotation mark behind what was behind the straight quotation mark.

[SnowshoeLaneLOL]

Samar02--I will save this, too. It is ture that when I tried the first patterns, any quote mark in front of a close parens (for example) did not want to be a close quote. So, I did do Find Next and then Change each time--still it worked pretty well and I know what to do next time. Thanks.

Sorry it took so long to respond--I was away form my computer for a few days. Thank you.

[HBinswanger]

WAIT, I found an infintely easier solution.

With Edit/preferences/Type set to turn on typographer's quotes, using GREP, put this same string in both the find and change fields, then do a change all:

\x{22}

It works, and super-quickly.

[Peter Spier]

That's what was suggested in above in post #8, but you've used the unicode value rather than typing the metacharacter or pasting the quote mark.

[HBinswanger]

Yes, I used that earlier suggestion, but two things: 1. This doesn't require changing preferences (assuming one has it set to smartquotes), 2. using the unicode in GREP finds only straight quotes, not curly ones as using the literal symbols does. I'm working with a 410 page book, and doing the literal (per post #8) took about 15 seconds, as every single quote, straight and curly, was found and replaced. Using the GREP search for the unicode took under 1 second.

Incidentally, it turns out that you don't need "0022" just "22".

[bilglas]

And now here it is 2016, and you've just saved me HOURS AND HOURS of work!! Can't thank you enough, HB.

[lowy]

Awesome tip HB. Works a charm.

[JFPublishers]

@HBinswanger THIS worked!! Wow. GREP \x{22} in both find and replace boxes found/replaced all my straight quotes with typographers' (curly/smart) quotes and got the direction correct (magically knew if it was beginning or end quote)! It caught 32 not previously found using the one from samar02. This is by far the qickest solution.

*The advantage to samar02 GREP code and Replace All, you are finding the start quotes first, then the end quotes, so you can tell if you missed typing any quotation marks ...

Example: after replace all, it pops up "replaced 22" start quotes and then on the second run "replaced 25" end quotes...you know you're missing 3 start quotes. 

Great job ALL on this discussion...really helped my workflow enormously!! Thank you!

[JFPublishers]

@samar02 You just saved me at least 40 hours of work. THANK you so much for taking the time to post this. I have searched for solutions and this is the first one to work. I haven't tried @HBinswanger solution below, but THIS one was a GODsend!!! Thank you thank you thank you infinity. I did your GREP F/R for "all documents" in my 44 chapter book and not ONLY did it work perfectly, it showed me several places I'd missed an end quote!! So, all the props. 100% LIKE.

[ACEWilliams]

You are an angel. This was so incredibly helpful!

[Thomas24144043j68r]

Hello,

In InDesign how can I globally change quoted content currently punctuated with SINGLE open and closed quote marks to DOUBLE open and closed quote marks? (without undoing apostrophes). Thank you very much in advance.