When using single quote marks/apostrophes to represent missing letters (elision, as in 'em for them) and are in a font that uses curly quotes, those marks need to face the missed letters. No software I know of recognizes that need, but I put them in my novel. Then I compiled to Word. The marks flipped in compile. Is there a way around that?
This setup does it for me (although I write in French, and I donât actually do what you are trying to do) :
[Note that it doesnât work at the beginning of a paragraph, though.]
âŠAnd at compile? well, that would be another story. (Meaning: I donât know.)
(Iâm running the Windows version.)
Are you using straight quotes while editing and then telling compile to use typographerâs quotes? If so, itâs always going to use the opening quotes at elisions at beginnings of words, because it canât distinguish between opening single quote marks and such elisions. Itâs not actually a bug, but an inevitability.
For such cases, I enter them as I type⊠Shift-Opt-] (Iâm not at my computer to check).
Mark
Vincent, thank you so much. Iâm using Mac version 3.4, which offers fewer options than your version. But your answer got me thinking about a solution.
And Mark, yes, I do the shortcut when composing. Iâm typically in TNR 12 because thatâs whatâs demanded in publishing contexts. So I see that Iâve done the curly apostrophe right in the Scrivener pane, but compile to Word flips the apostrophe. I have a couple of brute force ways to correct (global replace), but they are dangerous. I guess itâs a Scrivener issue, because, compiling out in rtf keeps the correct elision, and copying over to Word maintains the elision apostrophes. RTF isnât ideal for other formatting reasons, but I may go that way. Thanks for getting me thinking
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What other reasons is RTF ânot ideal forâ?
Mac Scrivener uses KBs own code to convert its native RTF into DOCX (so presumably thatâs where the issue happens. But Word is probably the best RTF â DOCX converter, as both formats were developed my Microsoft, so compiling to RTF which doesnât involve any conversion shouldnât cause any problems when opened in Word.
I have never had any problems reported by my (mostly Windows-using) collaborators opening my RTF files in Word.
Mark
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Agree. Thanks. And I hadnât eliminated all possibilities. I compiled again, and elision apostrophes came out fine. I had sent to an editor via email, and he downloaded the word doc. Only thing I can think is his Word is âcorrectingâ my text. So big mountain becomes molehill, at least with respect to Scrivener.