Archive for the 'production' Category

production @ 11 Feb 2009 05:32 pm by Megan

From the Production Deck. . .Straight Quotes vs. Curly Quotes!

Apostrophes, left quotes, and double quotes, oh my! As long as there have been word processors, there has been confusion about these characters. No more, I say, no more!

The difference is obvious when you look at the characters side by side, and they conveniently have different Unicode/Hex numbers, too.  These are good to keep handy:

Double straight quote: U+0022 (0×0022)
Single straight quote: U+0027 (0×0027)

Single left curly quote: U+2018 (0×2018)
Single right curly quote: U+2019 (0×2019)
Double left curly quote: U+201C (0×201C)
Double right curly quote: U+201D (0×201D)

At No Starch, we prefer all quotes in running text (whether they’re single, double, or apostrophes) to be smart or curly quotes, while we want all quotes in code to be straight ones. Chances are, if you’re writing a book for us and using these characters incorrectly, we’re going to ask you to fix them. Here’s how.

The easiest way is to set up your word processor to make your quotes curly by default.

In Word, do the following:

  1. Go to Format -> AutoFormat -> Options -> AutoFormat tab and check the box next to “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes”
  2. Go to Format -> AutoFormat -> Options -> AutoFormat As You Type tab and check the box next to “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes”

In OpenOffice.org Writer, do the following:

  1. Go to Tools -> AutoCorrect -> Custom Quotes tab
  2. Check the Replace checkbox under Single Quotes, click the image of the Start Quote and choose U+2018, and click the image of the End Quote and choose U+2019
  3. Check the Replace checkbox under Double Quotes, click the image of the Start Quote and choose U+201C, and click the image of the End Quote and choose U+201D

To insert just one instance of a curled quote, do the following:

  • In Word, go to Insert -> Symbol, and then choose the character you want (using the Unicode or Hex numbers to confirm you’re picking the right character).
  • In OOo, go to Insert -> Special Character, and choose the character (using the Unicode or Hex numbers to confirm you’re picking the right character).

If you’ve already started working on a document that has straight quotes instead of curly ones, changing them is going to be a bit more difficult. You’ll have to do a search for each instance of a straight quote, and then replace it with the correct curled version. Fortunately, when you type a single or double quote into the Find field in Word or OOo, it will use a straight one by default — so do that. Then, insert an instance of a curly quote somewhere in the text, copy or cut it from there, and paste it into the Replace field. Proceed with the search and replace. (If you’re really daring, you could probably write a nice little Macro to do this job. . .but that’s for another day.)

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