How to replace typewriter (straight) apostrophe with typographic (curly) apostrophe?

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Level 2

478 points

How to replace typewriter (straight) apostrophe with typographic (curly) apostrophe?

I have a manuscript I got off the Internet that has a bunch of isn?t's and wasn?t's and the like—due, I assume, to some miscommunication between MS Word's automatic curly quotes and the ASCII limits of ISO Latin 1. I tried doing a find-and-replace to put typographic apostrophes in place of the question marks. Pages found the question marks and put typewriter apostrophes in place of them, though I'd carefully entered a typographical apostrophe ((opt-shift-]) in the Replace field. So I tried again, to replace the typewriter apostrophes with typographical apostrophes. Pages now replaced the few typographical apostrophes I'd manually entered with typewriter apostrophes. Well, at least it's consistent. So far as Pages, Apple's flagship word-processing/page-layout app is concerned, there's apparently no such thing as a typographical apostrophe—something that was understood, as I recall, by the original MacWrite 25 years ago. So do I have to go back to doing all my editing in TextEdit (which seems to be much better at text work than Pages), or can somebody tell me how to persuade Pages to take care of this trifling little task correctly?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.4GHz (2010), 4GB RAM, 320GB HD

Posted on May 28, 2012 6:23 PM

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Answer 1

May 28, 2012 7:13 PM in response to HandyMac

I have run a test on exactly the same expressions that you list.

I replaced one copy in the text with the curly apostrophe and copied that as the replacement text in the Find and Replace and it worked perfectly.

Try the copy and paste method as it always is exactly what you want to find and replace.

Sometimes there can be another formatting unlying the actual text. eg Capitalised text retains its lower case original.

Peter

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Answer 2

Jeff Shenk

Level 4

2,993 points

May 28, 2012 7:25 PM in response to HandyMac

I, like Peter, thought copy and paste might be more accurate than typing into the Find and Replace fields, but I got the same results you did. (I am also using 10.6.8).

Then I reset my Preference to Use Smart Quotes (my default, but I had switched it off to create the sample text with straight apostrophes) and just typed a regular (typewriter) apostrophe into the replace field. When I ran replace, I had the curly apostrophes. Might work for you.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,940 points

May 29, 2012 3:15 AM in response to HandyMac

HandyMac wrote:

So far as Pages, Apple's flagship word-processing/page-layout app is concerned, there's apparently no such thing as a typographical apostrophe

Pages > Preferences > Autocorrection > Use Smart Quotes

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Answer 4

HandyMac Author

Level 2

478 points

May 31, 2012 3:54 PM in response to HandyMac

Thanks for the responses. I went to TextEdit to fix this, and other copy editing, then copied the text back into Pages. I remember now I ran into this same problem years ago in the first edition of Pages, which was obviously not ready for prime time. Still not fixed. Too busy adding glitz, I guess.

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Answer 5

May 31, 2012 8:34 PM in response to HandyMac

Can't see what needs fixing.

Peter

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Answer 6

HandyMac Author

Level 2

478 points

Jun 1, 2012 1:20 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Copy these two paragraphs into a Pages WP document:

----------------------------------------

When you?re sleep deprived… parental control of baby?s sleep… meet baby?s needs consistently… respond to baby?s cries…

"Parents should recognize that having their babies cry unnecessarily harms the baby permanently," Commons said. "It changes the nervous system so they?re overly sensitive to future trauma."

----------------------------------------

Open the Find & Replace dialog. Enter Find: ? and Replace: ’ (opt-shift-}). (I.e. replace question mark with typographical apostrophe.) Click Replace All. It should say 5 Replaced. Check any of the replacements by enlarging the type; you’ll see an ASCII apostrophe ['] rather than the requested typographical version [’].

Then enter Find: " (space-") and Replace: “ (space-opt-[), and click Replace All. It will say 1 Replaced, meaning the quote mark preceding "It" in the second sentence (the only quote mark preceded by a space). Enlarge the replacement to see it clearly; it's replaced an ASCII " with another ASCII ".

So far as I can tell, Pages’ Find-Replace function can't tell the difference between ASCII apostrophe/quote marks and the typographical versions. Maybe it will once you turn on smart quotes in preferences; I haven't tried that -- but then of course you'd get smart quotes when you don't want them, for instance for something to be posted on an Internet forum, which often doesn't understand them. (The problems above and similar, often seen on the 'Net, are due to MS Word's having smart quotes on by default, so unaware users compose material with them and send it out over teh Interwebz, where they sometimes come through correctly, sometimes don't.)

Try the same experiment in TextEdit; you'll get the requested typographical versions. And so I did, then copied the text back to Pages. Like I said, kinda shoddy for Apple's Pride & Joy word processor. AppleWorks, by the way, does it right.

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Answer 7

Jun 1, 2012 1:53 PM in response to HandyMac

HM,

Allow me to condense what was suggested above.

In Preferences, turn on Smart Quotes.

Type an apostrophe (it will be a curly one) (You may now turn off the option if you wish.)

Copy the curly apostrophe you just created and paste it into the Replace field.

Now do the Find and Replace.

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Answer 8

Peggy

Level 8

41,601 points

Jun 1, 2012 6:12 PM in response to HandyMac

Changing from straight to curly quotes or vice versa is one of the things I use Devon Technologies WordService for.

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Answer 9

Barry

Level 9

59,861 points

Jun 1, 2012 9:00 PM in response to HandyMac

Here's another short set of steps to the result you want.

In Pages Preferences > Auto correction: Check the box beside Use Smart Quotes.
In the document: Select and Copy one instance of the double quote character.
Press command-F to open Find/Replace. Paste (the character will be pasted into the Find box)
Press tab to ove to the Replace box. TYPE a 'typewriter' double quote (not a curly quote).
Click Replace all.
Result after this pass:
Select one instance of the ? character. Copy.
Press command-F. Paste.
Press tab. TYPE a (typewriter) single quote (apostrophe).
Click replace All.
Result:

Results enlarged to show curly quotes. All example in the sample were successfully changed in this two pass process.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 10

Jun 1, 2012 10:37 PM in response to HandyMac

I'm not going to go into every possible permutation but I can replace the question mark with a curly apostrophe.

I can replace straight ' (foot mark) with a curly quote.

I have not altered one thing in my settings.

It is a matter of finding the exact instances you want replaced and matching those.

Peter

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Answer 11

Jeff Shenk

Level 4

2,993 points

Jun 2, 2012 4:36 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

Peter,

On my system it isn't quite that simple.

As far as I can tell, if I put either a straight or a curly quote in the find field (by copy and paste, or by typing it), it finds all instances of either.

If I put either a straight or a curly quote in the replace field, I get whichever style the preference is set to use. That is, if the preference to use smart quotes is checked, I get a curly quote, even if I entered a straight quote in the replace field, and if the preference is unchecked, I get a straight quote, even if I have a curly quote in the replace field. It does seem entirely consistent, so it is no problem to get find and replace to insert curly quotes, if that is what I want.

In all these situations, find and replace ignores the prime ′ (or foot mark).

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Answer 12

Peggy

Level 8

41,601 points

Jun 2, 2012 10:57 AM in response to Jeff Shenk

That ′ is not a straight quote or foot mark. I usually only see that in text that started out in some application in Windows, usually Word.

This may be a dumb question, but is all of the text in the same font? These characters can look very different in some fonts.

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Answer 13

Jeff Shenk

Level 4

2,993 points

Jun 2, 2012 7:29 PM in response to Peggy

Actually, Peggy, that is the correct typographic symbol for feet or minutes; I assumed that that was what "foot mark" meant. I did not (at least knowingly) use a different font, I just used the Character Viewer to enter a prime symbol in the default forum font. I am not aware of any key combination to type this directly.

Robert Bringhurst, in The Elements of Typographic Style, defines the prime as "An abbreviation for feet (1′ = 12″) and for minutes of arc (60′ = 1°). Single and double primes should not be confused with apostrophes, dumb quotes or genuine quotation marks, …"

To continue further off topic, I recommend that book as an interesting read for anyone interested in fonts and better typography.

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Answer 14

Peggy

Level 8

41,601 points

Jun 2, 2012 7:54 PM in response to Jeff Shenk

Well, it certainly is not a straight quote which is what I thought was the topic of this thread. I'll leave you to your "The Elements of Typographic Style" & won't bother you again.

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Answer 15

fruhulda

Level 6

15,161 points

Jun 2, 2012 9:47 PM in response to Peggy

´ is an accent aigu (acute accent) used in french language.

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