Curly Quote Question

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

I happen to like curly quotes.

However, automatic curly quotes don’t always do what I want.

For instance, if a single curly quote is at the beginning of a word, it will always be an open curly quote, aka Alt+0145.

Except when you you want it not to be, as in a bit of dialog, “Got ’em!”, when one wants Alt+0146.

In Word XP, as in Scrivener, I have curly quotes turned on.

In Word, if I want to have a close-curly-quote at the beginning of a word, I type Ctrl+’+’ and that gives me the correct quote.

This doesn’t work in Scrivener.

I can’t add this as a substitution in Scrivener because most of the time I do want the open curly quote at the beginning of a word.

So… any suggestions?

2

Hmm. No one has any suggestions?

3

Use the key above TAB on your keyboard for back-single-quote, intentionally getting it backwards, but otherwise making it distinct, and then in the replacements tab of the compile window, replace all such characters with the correct character, pasted in from wherever you like.

Alternately, use some other character or series of characters. Two ’ characters in a row could be used, which may turn into matched smart quotes, but you can just as easily replace that with your desired character as any other sequence of characters. Or +’, or '… really, anything that’s easy to type but stands out if for some reason it doesn’t get processed (say if your compile settings get wiped out).

You could create a search-based collection to highlight all such special character sequences, just to make sure you know where to look for them in your compiled output during copy editing.

4

Along the same lines as Robert’s suggestion, you could create a custom substitution for this to convert some unlikely sequence of characters into the single close quote. This would happen then as you’re typing rather than as a replacement during compile. You could also use the Alt+0146 code to type it directly, though if you use it frequently that may be less convenient. Or type the single quote type and go back and delete the first one.

5

Robert,

Thanks. Only drawback to the auto-correct is that it doesn’t kick in until you add a space to it… so then I will need to backspace before doing the other part of the word. I believe the character about the Tab is an accent grave.

No, scratch that. Typing ANY character kicks in the auto-correct. So now I just have to train my fingers to head for accent grave when I want close single quote.

6

I like the idea of it happening while I am typing (which I put as tyoping) – I haven’t gotten as far as compile yet.

Now I just need to figure out some way to keep a list of Alt+XXXX characters that I commonly use handy. Character Map is handy, but hard to find things on quickly.

7

Scratch Pad or Project Notes? Or a just a text document on the Desktop if you want these outside of Scrivener?

8

Found Project Notes. Now, again, this is something I may be missing, but is there an easy way, apart from Project => Project Notes to pull them up, since they don’t stay floating on top the way Statistics does?

(I do use Sticky Notes in Win 7 for other things.)

9

You can assign a keyboard shortcut in Tools > Options or add an icon to the main toolbar from Tools > Customize Toolbars. You can also make the notes always remain in front by selecting that option under the General tab in Options.

10

Thank you. Toooo many options. I still haven’t found most of them. I’m sure they’ll all be useful at some point…