Typing Symbol for "Inches"

[Dave_Daver]

Can anyone tell me how I can type the proper unit for inches in InDesign? Is there a proper way of doing this? All I get is qoutation marks when I use "shift" and the qoutation mark key.

Thanks,

DaveyDave

[Guest]

that's what I use. just turn off typographers quotes.

I'd look to see if the was a glyph first

[Marvin Sable]

If you seldom need typographer's quotes turing them off is a good option. If needing inch an foot marks is infrequent you can use the control key (Mac) to toggle the typographer's quotes to straight quotes. (Ctrl+Shift+") You get the single straight with ctrl + '

Unfortunately the toggle doesn't work the other way if typographer's quotes are turned off.

[Marvin Sable]

Sorry to neglect the PC side.On the PC that would be ALT+Shift+"

[FivePicaPica · Accepted solution]

Marvin's right, but it's worth pointing out that inches should be marked with double prime marks rather than dumb/straight quotes. Most character sets don't have them, but it's worth looking at the glyph menu.

If the font does have the prime marks (eg. Helvetica), I usually just do a GREP search:

Find what: (\d)”

Change to: $1\x{2033}

[phyllisj9]

Definitely use real prime marks!  If you use the manual method of making a straight quote, but then you later have to cut and paste a section that has those in it -- the straight quotes will convert to curly quotes if you have typographer's quotes turned on (and you may have wanted it on for the other text).  So it's a real problem in editing. Very likely to get converted right back to curly quotes.

The prime marks are slightly different anyway (more slanted than a straight quote).  You can make a character style if you need a different font (I think I have to switch to the Symbol font sometimes to find those).

HTH,

Phyllis

[Guest]

Don't forget about Type: Insert Special Characters: Quotation Marks: Straight Double Quotation Marks

Default shortcut of Shift-Control-Apostrophe.

[imjeffp]

Control-shift-" doesn't work for me on Snow Leopard/AI CS4.

[Peter Spier]

Try Opt + Shift + ". Thats the Mac equivalent of the Windows Alt + Shift + " which works.

[Eugene Tyson]

For me it's "Alt Shift ' "@ for prime marks

' = apostrophe

[Peter Spier]

Eugene,

What's the @ in your post all about?

And I guess it would be more proper to say I get straight quotes rather than primes, which should be angled (Thomas mentions using italics to fake it).

[Eugene Tyson]

Yup I changed it, my little finger was stuck on the shift key

I've been looking up the Unicode and it says it's 2034, but I can't get it to work? And I've tried Arial Unicode font, which has a prime mark (copied prime mark from Wikipedia)

So I guess you could use a stright quote then copy the wikipedia versoin, then find and replace using grep

[imjeffp]

Wait--I'm in the InDesign forum? Well shoot. Control-shift-" works in ID. I thought I was in the Illustrator forum. Control-shift-" doesn't work in AI.

Nice going Adobe. I thought the whole idea with the "suite" thing was commonality?

[Peter Spier]

Down the hall, on your left...

[lklitsch]

On Mac, go to "Glyphs" (lol - glyph quotes are inches!) and you'll find it there.

 

[csbc]

An oddity, and perhaps out of place on an Adobe site, is that in Apple's Pages this seems to have been disabled [or rather for me it did not work, but did in other apps]

[Dave_Daver]

How do you type "prime marks" instead of the straight quotation marks? I am using helvetica neue. thanks!

[Kenneth C. Benson]

Helvetica Neue doesn't have a prime, but you can get a prime or double prime from Symbol font. Go to the Glyphs palette, change the font to Symbol, and choose prime or double prime. If you're on Windows, you can just type ALT 0162 (prime) or ALT 0179 (double prime) from the numeric keypad while Symbol is selected.

Ken Benson

[Dave_Daver]

Is that the same for MAC?

[Kenneth C. Benson]

The Glyphs part is the same. I don't know how you can access extended characters from the keyboard on a Mac.

Ken Benson

[Eric16]

AFAIK, there is no keyboard shortcut way to access the special characters that are not attached to the option, control and shift modifiers and I'm pretty sure that one is not.

You have to use the ID Glyphs palette or the Mac Character palette from the International input menu. (Looks like a little flag, enable it under System Preferences->International->Input Menu->Character palette.)

[Thomas Phinney]

If the font doesn't have a double prime mark, try using the vertical double quote ("dumb" double quote), but italicize it. That gets about as close to the double prime mark as you'll find, and will better match the weight/style of the typeface than just borrowing the double prime from the Symbol font. Leastways, that's been my experience as a typographer who is unduly fussy about such things.  🙂

Cheers,

T

http://www.thomasphinney.com

[macinbytes]

I've had prime marks rejected in favor of straight quote marks. I think it is kind of like many clients insisting on using hyphens on prefixes. Even after explaining the proper use and even getting them to be in agreement that it is correct I have to change layouts for those two circumstances.

I know prime marks are correct, but who uses them for print? I've never seen literature in a Home Depot, Lowe's or Menard's that used a single or double prime mark. I am just wondering who is using them? Never once have I seen a prime symbol in POP or sales literature.

[RodneyA]

Most science journals and mathematicians use real "prime" marks. I wouldn't expect Home Depot ads to choose "correct" over "fast." Although there's graphics software out there that uses the circle accent that goes over the Danish å instead of true degree signs (which are larger). When preparing maps in the seismology journal I publish, I try to change all the primes and degrees to proper symbols when the software will let me in...

Note that once you've inserted a Glyph using the Symbol font the first time, it will show up in the top row of the Glyphs palette, and is easier to insert, since you don't have to explicitly change the font.

[macinbytes]

I'm accustomed to seeing primes for GIS software or reading maps, which makes sense. I've never seen primes used anywhere outside of mapping. Though the prime symbol may be correct on some level to indicate inches and feet, but no one is using it. I've never seen an engineered or manufactured drawing use them. Never see them in architectural drawing. I think outside of cartography " > ˝

I just think it is bad advice to tell people to use prime marks when most customers want straight quotes and don't care what is right per the dictionary. They will say snuck and don't care how many times you tell them it is sneaked.

shift + opt + e  = ´

shift + opt + g  = ˝

if you want the keystroke. This is true on the mac for all programs including Illustrator, InDesign and your standard system text input.