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Placing German text looses correct German close-quote

Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025

I'm placing German text into InDesign. The text is coming from Word and has the German language setting applied to it. However, when placed I'm constantly running into the problem of the German close quote facing the wrong way. So for instance, instead of coming in as Weltschmerz“ (where the close quote is the equivalent of an English open quote mark) it comes in as „Weltschmerz" (where the close quote is the same as an English close quote). I'm certain my German friends don't have to deal with this...they'd be jumping up and down. So what am I doing wrong?

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Import and export , Type
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Community Expert ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025

What are your settings in Preferences - and definition of corresponding ParaStyles in your INDD document? 

 

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025

Can you be more specific? Which Preference setting are you asking about, and which definition of my ParaStyle? I can tell you that, because I'm often placing Word files that contain both German and English text, the Language of the ParaStyle is initially English. However, after placing in InDesign and I'm scanning over the text, I'll apply a similar ParaStyle to German text that switches the Language to German: 2006 Reform to full paragraphs and will apply a local override of "German: 2006 Reform" to German words in otherwise English paragraphs.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025

Edit / Preferences / Type

 

So you don't have styles with the same names in the WORD document and in the InDesign document?

 

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025

I actually do have styles in Word witht he same names as my styles in InDesign. But looking closer at the work I do in Word before placing into InDesign, I discovered that one of my Word Macros was the culprit and was responsible for making that swap without my knowledge. I fixed that and everything works as it should.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025

@JamieMcKee

 

That's great to hear. 

 

Just in case, maybe it would be a helpful addition to your macros: 

 

https://www.id-tasker.com/uploads/WordStyle.zip

 

Set of macros that convert local formatting to CharStyles - in WORD. 

 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 10, 2025 Apr 10, 2025
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Preferences > Dictionary > German 2006

 

take care to use Duden. But this has no impact on your problem. 

when text is imorted InDesign remembers the quotes from imported files. Microsoft makes closing German quotations always wrong. You have to find & replace " with ", change all and the whole document is repaired in a second. 

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