[bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes

  • From: "Scott Blanks" <scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:54:44 -0700

Gerald,

I've always appreciated your knowledge and insight, and this current thread is no exception, but this last message of yours is very presumptuous. Yes, I did make that consideration, and I was simply expressing my concerns to the list, hoping for a definitive answer, if one exists.

My replace quotes feature has been disabled in word, and as I mentioned earlier, this didn't seem to prevent many of my early scans to be flawed in the quotation department, at least in the braille format. So, not wanting to cast doubt on anyone's knowledge, I'll inquire again if anybody understands why the resultant braille from a .ark to .rtf transfer is flawed?

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Hovas" <GeraldHovas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 8:43 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Scott,

You're obviously not sure that we're giving you good advice now.  Did you
stop to consider that whoever gave you the conversion to TXT advice may not
have given you good advice back then?  They didn't stop to realize that they
were doing amputation when the cure only needed a band-aid.

If you do the search in replace in OpenBook, then you could have problems.
However, if you do it in other software such as Word, like Jake mentioned,
then you don't have to worry about OpenBook messing them up during the
conversion.  In either case, I don't believe OpenBook or Word will change
them unless you do some editing at that spot in the file.  I've tested that
in Word, but not OpenBook since I prefer to validate in Word.  All you have
to do is close the file and open it back up, then check to see if the quotes
have been modified.

Of course, you can turn off smart quotes in Word, then you won't have to
worry that Word is monkeying with them.  To do this, follow the instructions
from Word's help info that I pasted below.  Note that I found an easy tip
for fixing them included in that help info.

HTH

Gerald

Change curly quotes to straight quotes and vice versa

Microsoft Word automatically changes straight quotation marks ( ' or " ) to
curly (smart or typographer's) quotes (
Smart single quotation marks or
Smart double quotation marks ) as you type.

To turn this feature on or off:
List of 2 items
1. On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options, and then click the
AutoFormat As You Type tab.
2. Under Replace as you type, select or clear the "Straight quotes" with
"smart quotes" check box.
list end

Note  You can find and replace all instances of single or double curly
quotes with straight quotes in your document. To do this, clear the
"Straight quotes"
with "smart quotes" check box on the AutoFormat As You Type tab. On the Edit
menu, click Replace. In both the Find what and Replace with boxes, type '
or ", and then click Find Next or Replace All.

To replace all straight quotes with curly quotes, select the "Straight
quotes" with "smart quotes" check box, and repeat the find and replace
procedure.


-----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jake Brownell Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:58 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes

Hi Scott,

If you do the replacements Gerald suggests in Microsoft Word, you'll have to

turn off the feature that makes Word play around with quotes. I think it's
called smart quotes and instructions for disabling it are in the recognizing

potential problem characters tip, at the end.

http://www.jbrownell.com/bks/tl.asp

Let us know what your findings are after trying it.

Jake
----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Blanks" <scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:40 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Gerald,

I'll try one book that way--submit it, have it validated, and accepted
into the collection. But if my memory serves, the quotes can be an issue
if you go from .ark to .rtf, even if, after the global f&p, Jaws seems to
read the proper numbers. I don't remember specific details, but it was
after seeing one of these manglings in Braille that I initially posed a
similar issue to the list many months ago, and I was advised to go the txt

route. Sorry, can't site specific names here, it was too long ago. I'm
going to download one of the books I first submitted which had ugly quotes

and describe them to the list, see if anybody has an epiphany.

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Hovas" <GeraldHovas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 7:33 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Scott,

Converting from ARK to RTF doesn't cause the problem with quotes.  The
problem occurs during the OCR recognition step.  I don't know if this is
isolated to OpenBook, or if it happens in K-1000 then K-1000 corrects the
problem before the step is complete.

Converting to TXT to fix the quotes is rather drastic because you lose
everything that makes a Rich Text File rich.  That includes things like
font
attributes such as font size, italics, and bold.

The better alternative is to fix the quotes with a global search and
replace.  Just replace characters 147 and 148 with 34, and characters 145
and 146 with 39.  If you don't have any other way to create the
characters,
you can hold down the Alt key in Windows and type the number proceeded by

a
0 for a three digit number such as 0147or two 0's for a 2 digit number
such
as 0034.  Remember to turn NumLock on if you're using JAWS.  BTW, you can
also just copy and paste to get the characters.  Also, you should be able

to
get 34 and 39 by just typing the appropriate quote character from the
keyboard.

HTH

Gerald

-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Blanks
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:01 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes

Jake,

Are you saying if I save from .ark to .txt, then open that document in
word,

and immediately save to .rtf, certain things will be lost? Thus, should I

go

directly from .ark to .rtf? I don't believe this is a great choice
either,
because as I recall, this causes issues with the quotes and apostrophes.
Ideas?

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Jake Brownell" <jabrown@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 6:54 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Hi Scott,

Please do not do that TXT step. Putting a file in that format makes it
lose nice things like font size, and style, which includes italics.
Personally I'd rather see a blank page disappear than I would these
somewhat important items.

BTW As you process the book you could place a certain set of characters
on

a blank page (and then it's no longer blank), so that it won't be lost
during the save to RTF. You can then remove those symbols in another
editor like Microsoft Word. I know this is a little more work, but the
above reason is one of the many things that made BookShare stop
accepting
TXT files.

Have a good one, our horror fan.

Thanks,
Jake
----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Blanks" <scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 6:38 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Yeah Gerald, I remember a discussion on this list many months ago. I
think one of the positives that came of that exchange of ideas was that
when working with Openbook files, it's best to convert to .txt, open
that

text file in ms word, and immediately save that file as an rtf
document.
As I recall, this helped not only with quotes, but also to eliminate
the
removal of blank pages.

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Hovas" <GeraldHovas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:03 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Scott,

I think my second message which corrected my goof explained this, but
you
want 39 and 34 in the scan.  That's the characters that the Braille
translator likes.

OpenBook has a habit of using the other characters, especially the one
for
the closing double quote.

HTH

Gerald

-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Blanks
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 10:57 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes

Gerald,

Ok, so when I convert my openbook file into an rtf document, the
punctuation

that is appearing at the beginning and end of dialog is character 39.
Is
this good or bad? Or does it mean anything at all? I'm mystified.
Also,
the
apostrophes are appearing as character 39.

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Hovas" <GeraldHovas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 8:47 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes



Scott,

Yes.  The opening and closing single quotes are in the 140's or
8000's
depending on which code your screen reader decides to announce.  JAWS
version 7 has been announcing the four digit number, and the version
5
I
used to run announced the 3 digit number.

HTH

Gerald

-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott
Blanks
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 2:39 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single
quotes

Pratik, can I determine if these are proper single quotes by checking
that
they are ascii character 39? Hope I'm phrasing that correctly.

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Pratik Patel" <pratikp1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 12:29 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single
quotes



Hello,

Braille formatting has no problem with properly converting single
quote
characters, so long as they are proper ASCII single quotes and not
stand-in
apostrophes.  If apostrophes appear where single quotation symbols
should
be, then braille conversion will not be correct.  You are absolutely
right
that a global replace presents incredible challenges.  Automatic
braille
conversion isn't smart enough to take care of this kind of
difficulty
at
this time.

Regards,

Pratik


-----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Grandma Cindy Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 3:15 AM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes appearing as single quotes

Scott,

I hope you're wrong about how they come out in BRF
format, because I've done at least 4 books that way
that I can think of--no, five or six that I remember.

Do you read in Braille? If so, download the most
recent ones like that I validated, Blood Royal and/or
Transit of Venus (Did you scan and submit that one? I
can't remember) and see how they came out. If they
don't read properly, then we need to know that, and
also need to know from the officials what to do. A
global change would make apostrophes also double
quotes.

Cindy R



--- Scott Blanks <scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Cindy,

Yep, English author. And published within the past
15 years. I would have no
problem leaving things as they are, but I don't
believe it will come out
well in the Braille format. I'm hoping someone can
comment on this concern.

I've converted what I've scanned into the rtf
format, and the quotes are
still appearing as single quotes or apostrophes.

Scott


----- Original Message ----- From: "Grandma Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 12:01 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: double quotes
appearing as single quotes



> Scott,
>
> Is this a book written by an English as opposed to
an
> American author? The English do it that way. They
> also, I've seen in books I've validated, omit the
> period we put after titles like Mr., and put
> punctuation marks outside quotation marks instead
of
> inside, as we do. Some of that may depend on when
the
> book was published, but I'm not sure.
>
> To find out more about the differences, as well as
an
> interesting take on grammar and punctuation, I
> recommend Eats Shoots and Leaves, which is in the
> collection. It's an amusing book.
>
> Which reminds me, spelling differs, too, z being
used
> in words like amusing instead of s.
>
> When I validate a book like that, I don't change
> anything but I do put in the long synopsis that
the
> book used English rather than American spelling
and
> punctuation.
>
> Grandma Cindy
>
>
> --- Scott Blanks <scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm using Openbook to scan a novel. Where dialog
>> appears in the book,
>> Openbook is identifying what should be double
quotes
>> at the beginning and
>> end of spoken passages as single quotes. I'm
>> concerned that all of these
>> single quotes will have to be converted to the
>> proper quotation marks. Am I
>> correct in this assumption, and if so, is there
an
>> easy way to do this? Or
>> another thought ... is there a scanning setting I
>> can adjust within Openbook
>> so the inaccurate marks will be seen properly?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Scott
>>
>>
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>>
>
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