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JohnKS
General User
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Posts: 29
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
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 Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject: Quotes with numbers |
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| Hello: is it possible to use normal straight quotes with numbers while preserving typographical quotes with text? For example, if specifying 1" or some such thing. Good wishes, John |
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jeanweber
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Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 674
Location: Queensland, Australia
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:24 am Post subject: Re: Quotes with numbers |
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| JohnKS wrote: | | is it possible to use normal straight quotes with numbers while preserving typographical quotes with text? For example, if specifying 1" or some such thing. |
Yes. If you have your options set up to change straight quotes into typographical quotes, then do this: immediately after you type " (and see it change to a curly quote), press CTRL+Z to "undo" the change from straight to curly quote.
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 2324
Location: Seven Kings, London, UK
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:05 am Post subject: |
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See Issue 22504. In my view this is a basic feature that should be implemented, if not as the default, at least as an option. WordPerfect has it as an option.
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acknak
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Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 4295
Location: ~ 40°N,75°W
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:55 am Post subject: Maybe not so clear |
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I just added this to Issue 22504:
| Quote: | > I cannot think of many situations where one
> would want smart quotes before or after digits.
"The train arrives at 9"
The point isn't how often it happens.
At least as it is now, there is a simple (if not very obvious) workaround (Ctrl+z). If the 'smart-quotes' were 'smart' enough to leave quotes after numbers alone, how would you override that when you need it?
And, to be completely pedantic, the ASCII quotes are not the most correct symbols: Unicode defines distinct code points for the symbols prime (minutes, U+2032) and double-prime (seconds, U+2033).
I'm not arguing for one behavior or the other, only that it isn't a clear-cut case. Rather than make the app too 'smart', I prefer that it be easy to tell the app to do exactly what I want. |
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Jallan
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Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:12 am Post subject: |
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If you want to indicate feet, inches, minutes, or seconds, you can also use the proper Unicode characters instead of ASCII typewriter kludges. This is the twenty-first century, the average computer user has more typographical power than most professional print shops of 60 years ago and klunky typewriter workarounds should be relegated to the past.
U+2032 PRIME and U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME are available in most fonts. Use your keyboard driver editor to assign them to appropriate positions on your keyboard if you use them a lot.
Compare:The difference is not great, but there is a rightness and elegance to using the proper symbols. |
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Westland
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Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 562
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: |
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To Jallan:
| Quote: | | U+2032 PRIME and U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME are available in most fonts. Use your keyboard driver editor to assign them to appropriate positions on your keyboard if you use them a lot. |
Very interesting.
How do you insert these characters (10° 30′ 15″) on this forum ?
Use your keyboard driver editor. Can you explain this a little further ?
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Jallan
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Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:47 am Post subject: |
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| Westland wrote: | To Jallan:
| Quote: | | U+2032 PRIME and U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME are available in most fonts. Use your keyboard driver editor to assign them to appropriate positions on your keyboard if you use them a lot. |
Very interesting.
How do you insert these characters (10° 30′ 15″) on this forum ? |
I just insert such them into the edit box, whether from the keyboard or by copy and paste or by ALT-NumKeypad decimal number of the Unicode character. Or I enter the HTML decimal character entity value.
For example : Љ ₪ ℅ ☺ ♥ ↔ ∞ ╡
Checking the box after doing a preview shows that the editing box converts any such characters to the HTML entities. I am using Firefox as my browser, if that makes a difference.
| Quote: | | Use your keyboard driver editor. Can you explain this a little further ? |
Check at http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/utilities_fonts.html for various Unicode utilities including Keyboard layout creators and editors. I think most if not all current OS's support keyboard driver editing and there are free or low-cost programs for some earlier systems, such as Windows before Windows 2000. |
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Westland
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Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 562
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:58 am Post subject: |
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To Jallan:
Thank you for your answer.
I'm using Opera on Window XP. I can insert several characters here: ╛├╚
Unfortunately, I can't insert U+2032 PRIME and U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME, among several others. Maybe it's a browser problem (I can see all the characters correctly)
I'll check your Link, thanks
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Jallan
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Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:34 am Post subject: |
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| Westland wrote: | | Unfortunately, I can't insert U+2032 PRIME and U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME, among several others. Maybe it's a browser problem (I can see all the characters correctly)[ |
You should be able to type in ″ for PRIME and ″ for DOUBLE PRIME and so forth for any other characters that for some reason you can't paste in directly.
The official Microsoft keyboard layout creator is available from Microsoft here. This works with Windows 2000 and above. |
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Bhikkhu Pesala
Super User
Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 2324
Location: Seven Kings, London, UK
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:37 am Post subject: |
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| Westland wrote: | I'm using Opera on Window XP. I can insert several characters here: ╛├╚
Unfortunately, I can't insert U+2032 PRIME and U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME, among several others. Maybe it's a browser problem (I can see all the characters correctly) |
′ PRIME and ″ DOUBLE PRIME can be inserted in Opera with Alt X
Preferences, Advanced, Shortcuts, Keyboard, Edit, Edit Widget, New:
x alt = Convert hex to unicode
Alter 8242 and Alter 8243 are the decimal equivalents of hex code points U+2032 and U+2033
I don't find have fonts with Prime and Double Prime, apart from the ones I make myself. For the vast majority of users, " and ' are the easiest to use. They exist in almost all fonts and are found on most keyboards.
"The train arrives at nine." or "The train arrives at 9." is more usual than "The train arrives at 9" If there is an option to turn on/off smart quotes with numerals it will suit everyone. That is how WordPerfect has done it for years.
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Westland
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Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 562
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:35 am Post subject: |
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To Bhikkhu Pesala:
I was expecting your answer...
″Thank You″
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Jallan
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Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 267
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:49 am Post subject: |
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| Bhikkhu Pesala wrote: | | I don't find have fonts with Prime and Double Prime, apart from the ones I make myself. |
Hm! Indeed, on checking I see they are not included in the Windows WGL4 character set which was the basis on which many font designers decided which characters to included in Latin script fonts.
However I think they were in the versions of the Windows Web Core fonts, still available here at http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ . And they are included in all the standard Windows I have just checked. But Gentium doesn't have them.[/quote]
| Quote: | | For the vast majority of users, " and ' are the easiest to use. They exist in almost all fonts and are found on most keyboards. |
For all users they are the "easiest" ot use and were always the standard fallback, unless you switched to a symbol font. A little more elegance could be added by italicizing them to give them an approximation of the proper slope of the true prime characters.
I'm inclined to feel that a lot of problems of this kind would be best solved by a general protection feature that could be applied to text to prevent any autocorrection, spell-checking, and so forth. Then someone could type their typewriter quotation marks or odd spellings they would normally want to be autocorrected and so forth, apply that feature, and know they would remain as they were typed.
For the vast majority of users "smart quotes" are also easiest to use ... which is why one sees so many errors when smart quotation algorithms quite undstandibly fail.
| Quote: | | "The train arrives at nine." or "The train arrives at 9." is more usual than "The train arrives at 9" If there is an option to turn on/off smart quotes with numerals it will suit everyone. That is how WordPerfect has done it for years. |
But WordPerfect doesn't support Unicode.
But if there are to be options of this kind, why not also an alternate option to subsitute the proper Unicode symbols after digits in place of the typewriter quotation marks? Then use of the proper symbols would become just as "easy".
Also, one problem with "smart quotes" is keeping exceptions as exceptions. Do some editing around a mark you don't want become curly or do a general auto-correction on text, and suddenly typewrite quote symbols you wanted to remain as typewriter quote symbols have become curly.
It's why so many turn off the smart quotation feature.
I'm inclined towards instead adding a feature to turn off all auto-correction of all kinds on selected text, which would solve not just the problem of smart quotations reverting, but also wishing to retain various forms and spellings that one would normally want to autocorrect. Highlight the character or characters, apply the feature, and the character(s) would be protected from any autocorrection changes. |
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