Need space before opening quote marker

Question

I’m finally at the point where I need to ask: is there any way to fix the issue of having to add a space BEFORE an opening quote marker–single or double–to avoid getting a closing quote marker? I have what look to be the right markers selected in ‘Checking > Quotation Rules’, but something’s not right…

Answer 1

Paul - could you give an example of what you mean? Where are you adding a space? When you type in the text or in the quotations rules themselves?

What do the quotation marks look like that you are using?

Comments

Sure, anon848905. I copied & pasted the following from a Note window:

”There is no space before the opening quote marker.”
“There is a space before the opening quote marker.”

You can see that on the first line the opening quote marker is actually a close quote marker. This happens whether I type in a Note window (where it most frequently trips me up…), Edit Renderings, etc. I think the automatic spaces following backslash codes prevents it from happening in the vernacular text window.

Paul

---

It also happens in find/replace boxes and everywhere in PT where you need to type a quotation mark without a preceding space. I think it is caused by the (optional) autocorrect.txt file that is/was distributed with Paratext at some point, I think, which contains changes from straight to curly quotes. This works beautifully in a PT project window, on the principle that backslash codes cause there to always be a space preceding an open quote marker in a PT Scripture text, as you point out.

If you have a file, "autocorrect.txt" in your project folder (\My Paratext Projects\xxx), take a look at it.

Should this be considered a bug in PT, or just an annoyance? It is a minor annoyance for a user who understands smart quotes; I've been living with it for a while. But it can be a major problem for the new-to-computers user who needs to have the curly quotes inserted into the text, but doesn't know why his search isn't working (who doesn't have good glasses or might not notice the difference between “ and ”).

KimB

---

Yes, in find/replace too, KimB. Thanks for chiming in–it’s always good to
know I’m not the only one facing an issue!

I had a look at autocorrect.txt. In mine I have the following lines:

#quotations (from anon848905 )
’–> \u2018
’–>\u2019
"–> \u201c
"–>\u201d

When I comment that out I get nasty looking straight quotes, despite seeing
lovely curly quotes in my Quotation Rules.

Paul

---

KimB:

Should this be considered a bug in PT, or just an annoyance?

This is not a bug in PT. This the way the auto-correct works (by taking some keystrokes and changing them). In this case, the auto-correct takes a space followed by a straight-quote and changes them into a space followed by a curly opening-quote. It’s meant as a convenience to provide an easy way to type in characters that aren’t on the typical keyboard.

Paul:

is there any way to fix the issue of having to add a space BEFORE an opening quote marker–single or double–to avoid getting a closing quote marker?

Sorry, but auto-correct does not (and, most likely, will not ever) have the smarts to determine that you wanted a curly opening-quote without a space before it because that depends on knowing details about the text formatting and location where typing is happening. This would be especially difficult in certain places like the Find/Replace dialog.

---

Paul,

What anon291708 says is true - since my name is on the sample you show let me explain what was happening.

Someone probably asked the question of how can I make " (straight double quotes) show up as opening and closing quotes in Paratext. In Word these are “smart” and become opening or closing as appropriate. In Paratext it is not possible to have it be both - so, for the sample I made we used space double quote to get an opening and double quote to get a closing. This of course is not very helpful in all situations.

Personally, I use << to get an opening double and >> to get a closing double. My standard quotation rules look more like this
# Quotation marks
<<-->“
“<-->‘
‘<--><
In other words, << becomes “
Then pressing another < becomes ‘
Then pressing another < becomes a < and the cycle can repeat

Personally I don’t start with < becoming a single quote because I don’t want to accidentally leave a single quote someplace where I forget to type the second <, but you could set up rules differently.

There are lots of ways this can be done but there is no way to press the " and make it become both opening and closing without some other keystroke.

Please note that the autocorrect.txt file gets shared by the project - so if you change the autocorrect for yourself you may be messing up someone else on the team. Communication is critical!

---

@anon291708: So is my problem that I’ve got those lines in
autocorrect.txt? And yet, I reported that I commented them out and the
results were the same, notwithstanding the Quotation Rules I have in place
(with curly quotes shown). I guess I don’t understand, unless this is the
case for everyone and KimB and I are the only ones who are bothered by
backwards quote markers at the beginning of lines…

As for “knowing details about the text formatting and location where typing
is happening”, is first space in a field (e.g., Note window, Find/Replace
dialogue) enough? There’s not much chance you’d want a closing quote marker
there…

---

Thanks for the explanation, anon848905. I used to use chevrons, but then someone
on some Paratext forum said, “I can’t believe people are still using
chevrons for quote markers!” Which made me think that Paratext was able to
handle curly quotes. From what anon291708 says, that may not ever be the
case… Which may find me going back to chevrons!

Paul

---

They were not true chevrons, but rather sequences of the < (shift comma)
and > (shift period).

D anon467281

Global Publishing Services
Scripture Typesetting trainer & Regular Expression "specialist"
Dallas, TX

---

Sorry, just using the ‘lay’ term:

However, as true chevrons are not present on computer keyboards, the available less-than and greater-than symbols are often used instead. They are loosely referred to as angle[d] brackets or chevrons in this case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Angle_brackets).

I know better now! :-)

    Paul

---

Paul:

And yet, I reported that I commented them out and the results were the same

From your original post:

Paul:

When I comment that out I get nasty looking straight quotes

That sounds like you did not get the same results to me, and it would be the expected behavior.

Paul:

despite seeing lovely curly quotes in my Quotation Rules

The quotation rules are only there to aid checking (Checking > Basic Checks > Quotations) and publication. It does not affect anything else in Paratext.