Whenever I receive a manuscript to edit, I automatically change it to a font I find easy on the eyes for the first critique read pre-edit, and looks good for agent submission or self-publishing.
No matter which original font the author uses, Word changes the quotes, single and double, to straight quotes, when it goes from the author’s computer to mine. It’s already bolloxed up before I put it in Bookman Old Style, or even my other favorite, Palatino Linotype, which uses straight quotes, but of a different style from Word’s choice.
I was alerted by an author who was proofing his return book from Amazon’s Kindle people that they were having trouble resetting his now typeset manuscript from a layout artist, because there were both smart (curly) and straight quotes in it.
Hm. Problem. There should have been no straight quotes in it.
I tried mass changing through the Find and Replace function. No joy. Word would say, essentially: No Changes Found. If I put in the character set codes of 0146 and 0148, F&R simply couldn’t see a difference. No surprise; they are the same numbers Word was using to change them. After studying Word’s How-to guides to fix the problem, I knew less than I did before, and I had already tried what was offered as the solutions.
I could hand-change the quotes. It did work. But who in their right mind was going to do that? There can be 50,000 double and single quotes (since these double as apostrophes) in a manuscript. Who knows how many; it depends on the story.
Some of you may already know how I solved it; it was staring me right in the face, really. I copied an incorrect straight double quote mark from the manuscript into Find (just like you might use to find the word “and”). Then typed a quote mark of the font I was using into the manuscript. Once I was sure it was Finding and Replacing the right thing, I selected Replace All (it does both beginning and end double quotes, so you don’t have to do both). Zip, it was done.
Then I repeated the process with the single apostrophe/quote mark with the same method.
Now I only had to be alert to reverting a backward (i.e.: ‘em, should be ’em) single quote mark when needed. Fixing those works like this:
1: Put a letter in front of the incorrect apostrophe (looks like an open single quote) [x‘em]
2: Go back and put in a reversed (or ending) single quote [x’em]
3: Delete the x and you’re left with an actual apostrophe in front of the word [’em.]
I had a good laugh on myself when I figured out the issue: I’d not ever given the Find and Replace function anything to Replace.
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Great trick! I typed part of my MS in Word on my iPad, part on my PC. What a mixup! Nothing I tried worked. This is a smooth trick. Bingo! it replace 7,400+ double quotes correctly.
“find and replace, formatting, quotation marks”
I notice when I put quote marks in the reply, it puts in the straight double quote marks. :-)
I’m working on a 350 page book containing dialog (jokes) with thousands of those dreaded (“) quote marks. I was going to change them all by hand to the curly quote marks…a ton of finger-breaking work! I was not looking forward to the work involved. Thanks for showing me how to change them in Word. Using that method over 6,000 of them changed…Yay!
There’s actually a simpler way than this. In MS-Word, click the down arrow at the top of the screen (“Customize Quick Access Toolbar”), then click “More Commands,” then click “Proofing,” then click Auto-Correct Options, click “AutoFormat as You Type,” ensure the “Straight Quotes” with “smart quotes” box is checked. Click ok, click ok. (You should be back in the document.) Simply do a Ctrl-H (Replace), and enter the same ” (or ‘) into both the “Find what:” and “Replace with:” boxes, then click Replace All. That’s it. (To go back to straight quotes, just reverse the process.)
Thank you very much for such GOOD trick.
It saved me a lot of time.
PS: Turn off auto correction settings (of straight quote to smart quotes) before using ‘find and replace’ if you are facing no change in quotes type like mine! :D