On Sat, 09 Feb 2013 00:49:52 -0500 doug <dmcgarr...@optonline.net> wrote:
> I have imported a relatively long document from an email, which contains > a lot of single and double quote marks, > all of them "inch marks"--straight lines. they need to be curly quotes > and apostrophes. While I could and did > change the preferences (in whatever drop-down menu I found it) to use > single and double curly quotes, it does > not automatically take place, and I dont' know how to do a search and > replace on them, since some double > quotes are opening quotes, and some are closing quotes. So even if I > manually change one and then use it as > a template for the s&r, how will it know what to do? And what about > apostrophes, in words like "can't?" > I had to do this some years ago for several book texts, so what I say is subject to possibly faulty memory! Normally a leading quote is the sequence <space quote> and a trailing quote <quote space>, or sometimes <StartOfPara quote> <quote EndofPara>. Ditto for single quotes, apart from the apostrophe. I normally type a short line to generate sample curly quotes so I can Copy and Paste these into the Replace box. My memory is that Find and Replace in OOo 3.x did not accept characters direct from /Insert /Special Characters, so I used this work around; this may have changed in AOo 3.4.x. I then was able to use a few Find and Replace sequences to change an entire text. I think I actually used AltSearch in place of Find and Replace for the last texts. I did have to check the texts for anomalies - there were a few, but these were picked up quickly in a proof-reading scan; I converted several book length texts in a matter of a few minutes each. If you decide to use this method, do please keep an unmodified backup, as global Find and Replaces can quickly be disastrous until you get the hang of them. it may be possible to do all this with either a macro or Regular Expressions. I have no great experience with either. -- Rory O'Farrell <ofarr...@iol.ie> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
