Turning Typewriter Quotes into Curly Quotation Marks

[Magzzz28]

I am having an issue where I am trying to turn all of my quoatation marks from a typewriter quote (where the quotes look like two lines and arent different for either side of the quotation) to the curcly quotes marks that are two different glyphs. Trying to do find replace glyph doesnt work as the quote marks are only technically one glyph and not two, and find replace text doesnt work to specify the way I want it to look . How would I do this without manually going through my entire document, selecting each one and replace it with the correct glyph? 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I think there are a couple of approaches, but I'd use a GREP search and replace. GREP has specific wildcards for all quote mark types.

I suppose a single complex string could be created, but I'd use two:

• GREP search: (?<=[\r|\s])~"
• GREP replace: ~{

and

• GREP search: ~"(?=[\s|\r])
• GREP replace: ~}

That should find any double straight quote at the start of a paragraph or following a space and replace it with a left curly quote, and the second find any double straight quote followed by a space or paragraph return, and replace it with a right double curly quote.

Do test this on a copy of your file, though, just in case there are unexpected glitches.

[Derek Cross · Accepted solution]

Try: Edit > Find/Change and select from the Query drop-down menu: Straight Single to Typographers Quote.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Neither of these presets (single/double) has ever worked for me; they leave the straight quote as a straight quote, as the F/R strings more or less establish.

I don't know of any built-in search or feature that can distinguish between left and right typographer's quotes for this purpose. I may well be forgetting something. The GREP above, or something like it, is the only method I've ever found that works.

(ETA: Unless I am missing some subtlety of F/R, these presets are simply broken. The replace marker in both is not interpreted as a typographer's mark, and there is no differentiation for left and right. Has something changed, here, perhaps? ETA2: or is the operation depending on auto-correct to apply the correct polarity of quote?)

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Use Typographer's Quotes makes the difference when you use the queries that come free and installed with InDesign. If it is off, they don't work. If it is on, they do.

~Barb

[Derek Cross]

Barb's the man – if I'm allowed to say that.

[Mike Witherell]

Barb's yer uncle?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Can I quote you on that?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The check box was unaccountably empty on my system; I have no idea when or how, as I would never use anything but typographer's quotes. So (1) thanks for catching a flaw in my setup by sheer Uri Geller perception, and (2) sorry for any confusion of the topic. This simple feature is indeed the right process for the OP or anyone else with a doc full of straight men... er, straight quotes.

[Magzzz28]

YES! This worked you have saved me! ❤️

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

No matter which approach you use, you might still have a few to search for and correct manually. The "Smart Quotes" algorithm has a historical limitation in that it will replace "dumb"/straight (aka inch/foot marks) quotes based on the position in the copy. e.g. if you have a straight quote immediately after a space, the algorithm assumes you are starting a sentence, and will apply either an opening single quote or opening double quote depending on which key you hit. This is fine MOST of the time, however, if you are using certain contractions – things like ’70s or ’tis – these SHOULD use an apostrophe (aka a CLOSING single quote). In typographic convention, an apostrophe in a contracted word indicates something has been deleted. The Smart Quote algorithm doesn't know the difference so it defaults to an OPENING single quote, which is typographically incorrect.

I see this all the time in movies, television, news crawls, etc and it's very annoying to my typographic soul, especially if it's a period movie!