How to replace existing standard quotes with custom quotes ?

tfg004 · Newbie Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Posts: 3

Hi,

I have lots of documents which were written in OOo v1.x with standard quotes.
I'm using v2.0.4 now and have standard quotes automatically replaced with custom quotes by the AutoCorrect settings.

However, I couldn't find a way to automatically replace the standard quotes in all my older documents.

I found an old thread about this, and user RGB suggested:

RGB · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:45 am Post subject:

Format -> autoformat -> Apply.
It is simpler than my (forgotten) old answer...

tfg004 · Newbie Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Posts: 3

I already tried that, but it didn't work Sad

BillP · Super User Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 2702

Format > Autoformat > Apply only works on the Default paragraph style.

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=55635&highlight=autoformat

acknak · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:48 am Post subject:

If you have to resort to Find & Replace, you can do a pretty good job with

Search for: "\<
Replace with: “ (U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK)
Options / Regular expressions: ON

Repeat using
Replace with: ‘ (U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK)

That will handle almost all the opening quotes correctly.

Once that's done, you can use straight F&R on the remaining (closing) ascii quotes.

tfg004 · Newbie Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Posts: 3

The F&R with Regular expressions did the job.
Thanks Smile

-tfg

bluegecko · Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:55 pm Post subject:

The same limitation was bugging me for ages (why on earth OOo's Autoformat only works on Default paragraph styles I don't know!). Anyway, in case this helps others looking for a simple solution, here's a macro I wrote to do the business. It should also correctly change apostrophes (ie single quotes within words, like we'd or o'clock). There's a bit of a kludge required as OOo's implementation of Regular Expressions does not permit placing matched substrings in the replace field.

For ease of use, you could associate the macro with a hot key.

samdiener · General User Joined: 16 Oct 2009 Posts: 5

Hello,
I'm a newbie trying to install this macro. I've never installed a macro before.
I tried following the instructions in the Getting Started with Macros document: http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/0117GS-GettingStartedWithMacros.pdf
On page 13 of that document, it says,
"Some macros are contained in documents, some as regular files
that you must select and import, and some as macro text that should be copied and pasted into the Basic IDE; use Tools > Macros > Organize Macros > OpenOffice.org Basic to open the OpenOffice.org Macros dialog, choose the macro to edit, and then click Edit to open the macro in the Basic IDE."
So I went to Organize Macros and OpenOffice.org Basic, then chose new.
I pasted the text you suggest for creating a smartquotes macro into the document.
This sounds lke a ridiculously easy question, but now what?
I tried clicking compile, but I got a syntax error saying "undexpected symbol: +." strangely, this error did not stop on the first plus sign in the afind command, but in the line with "Chr(34)+"\<",_"
I also don't see how to save it with a name like "SmartQuotes" or if that's even what I should do, because it seems to want to name it "My Macros & Dialogs.Standard". One more question: on a mac, do you know to where I save this? I imagine it might be in an openoffice library or something, but I'm not sure where.

floris_v · Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 9:58 am Post subject:

It's really much simpler than that.
Tools - macros - OOo Basic - Organizer. Navigate to My macros - Standard - Module 1. Select any macro in the list and click Edit. That opens the macro editor. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and paste the macro text there, close the editor screen (changes are saved automatically). You can now run that macro.
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JohnV · Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 1:53 pm Post subject:

samdiener · General User Joined: 16 Oct 2009 Posts: 5

Thanks JohnV and floris_v. I appreciate your help.

floris_v - The method I used it turned out did insert it right where you said it would be, but your method for inserting macros is much simpler. It would be great to get that into the documentation. Is there someone I should contact about suggesting that, or a wiki where I should credit you and paste what you said in so that future users might find it easier?

And JohnV, the trailing space you mentioned did kick up that error, and after I fixed that one I got another set of errors saying essentially the same thing. There was a single trailing space after a bunch of lines as I copied them from up above.

I removed those trailing spaces, clicked close as you said, ran the macro, and voila, it worked as advertised. Very cool. Thanks to the macro's author, also.

I'm pasting in below the version I used that worked: