[stylist] Peter, Straight Quotes vs Smart Quotes in MS Word

Fri Dec 12 20:42:53 UTC 2008

Hello Robert and listers,

Your message was displayed using the Arial Font. JAWS pronounced the quotes 
as "Quote." Let me look at the fonts used in S&S Issues to see which ones 
cause JFW to say, "Quote" or "Left Quote and Right Quote."Let me look in to 
this further.

Peter Donahue

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
To: "'NFBnet Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] Peter, Straight Quotes vs Smart Quotes in MS Word

Well guys, here's a  quote from Robert- "Thanks you guys for the discussion
on quotes, from Word to HTML. I'm all the smarter for being straighten out."

Robert Leslie Newman
Email- newmanrl at cox.net
THOUGHT PROVOKER Website-
Http://www.thoughtprovoker.info

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Donna Hill
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 11:28 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] Peter, Straight Quotes vs Smart Quotes in MS Word

Peter,
I googled "left right quotes in Word" and I am copying the pertanant link
and the text of an article by a former PC World writer.  Notice that, if you
are intending to use the Smart quotes  (left & right quotes in Word) in
anything that is HTML, which I'm assuming a web page would be, though I
really have no experience writing them, HTML will render them as gibberish.
They're easier to read, but don't work in HTML, so the author explains how
to switch between them to meet your current needs.  There are several
comments below the article as well.
HTH
Donna
***
From:
http://earthlink.com.com/8301-13880_3-9835631-68.html
Switch quickly between Word's smart quotes and straight quotes Posted by
Dennis O'Reilly

Dennis O'Reilly has covered PCs and other technologies in print and online
since 1985. Along with more than a decade as editor for Ziff-Davis's
Computer

Select, Dennis edited PC World's award-winning Here's How section for more
than seven years. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an
employee

of CNET.

When I described how to
replace Microsoft Word's smart quotes with straight quotes  to keep the HTML
versions of documents from breaking, several people objected, claiming that
straight quotes make the docs more difficult to read. I agree completely,
which is why I decided to tell you about the quickest way I know to convert
from one quote style to the other. In just a few seconds you can optimize a
document for the Web, or for readability in print or onscreen.

Suppose you want to put a Word document that's full of smart quotes--both
the double quotation-mark style, and single apostrophes--onto a Web page.
You know the HTML will break the smart quotes, rendering them a nonsensical
series of characters. To get the file ready for the Web in Word 2003, click
Tools*AutoCorrect Options*AutoFormat As You Type; in Word 2007, choose the
Office button in the top-left corner, click Word Options  at the bottom of
the window, select Proofing in the left pane, and click AutoCorrect
Options*AutoFormat As You Type. In both versions, uncheck "Straight quotes"
with "smart quotes," and click OK (twice in Word 2007).

Microsoft Word's AutoFormat As You Type dialog box

Uncheck "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes" in Word's AutoFormat As You
Type options to get your document ready for the Web.

Next, click Edit*Replace in Word 2003, or the Home tab and then the Replace
button to the far right in Word 2007 to open the Find and Replace dialog
box.
Type " (the double-quote mark) in the "Find what" field, and the same
character in the "Replace with" field below it. Click Replace All*OK (or
press Alt-a and then Enter). Now type ' (the apostrophe) in the "Find what"
field, and the same character in the "Replace with" field, and click Replace
All*OK  again (or press Alt-a and then Enter again). Your document's quotes
are now as straight as a school marm's posture.

Now suppose you want to switch back to smart quotes to make the text easier
to read. Simply follow the same steps again, checking rather than unchecking
the "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes" option in the AutoFormat As You
Type dialog.

A question of readability
When I took a class in Web design back in the late '90s, we were taught that
sans serif fonts (such as Arial, Calibri, Tahoma, and others without the
little finishing strokes at the ends of each character) were easier to read
on computer screens than serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, Garamond, and
Century.
Researcher Alex Poole conducted
a literature review of serif vs. sans serif readability , finding that such
characteristics as the "x-height" (the height of the lower-case "x"), letter
spacing, and stroke width had a greater effect on a font's readability than
whether or not it uses serifs. Poole concludes that aesthetics have more to
do with the selection of serif or sans serif fonts than legibility.
(I was also intrigued by the researcher's explanation of how "legibility" is
distinguished from "readability.")

Tomorrow: My 10 favorite Web-search shortcuts.

Dennis O'Reilly has covered PCs and other technologies in print and online
since 1985. Along with more than a decade as editor for Ziff-Davis's
Computer Select, Dennis edited PC World's award-winning Here's How section
for more than seven years. He is a member of the CNET blog Network, and is
not an employee of CNET.
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5 comments
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by
galacticcruiser
 December 19, 2007 4:43 AM PST  Misleading: HTML does not break if you use
smart quotes. It will break if the author of the web page/site does not
support the right encoding of the web pages (typically, UTF-8 encoding is
what you want). I would strongly discourage people getting rid of smart
quotes in favor of straight ones.

To give the article author the benefit of the doubt, I will assume that "You
know the HTML will break the smart quotes, rendering them a nonsensical
series of characters" means that you know the particular site you are
writing content for can't handle the smart quotes because of the way that
site was constructed!
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by
MS2BU
 December 19, 2007 6:36 AM PST  If MSFT complied with web standards in IE
would your article be necessary?

Communication and language changes; it's time to abandon "smart quotes"
anyway, strict use of 'straight quotes' would give us a key to use for
something useful; like stun for pointless drivel about Microsoft Word.
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by
galacticcruiser
 December 19, 2007 7:26 AM PST  MS2BU -- the point about IE not being
standards compliant is a HUGE problem for web developers. But, it has
NOTHING to do with this issue. Smart quotes are actually good from a
typography perspective. Straight quotes are not.
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by
jefflac
 December 19, 2007 1:06 PM PST  Dennis, great blog. Please keep up the good
work. These little tips are really invaluable. Especially the one about
plain text - I probably spend 20 minutes a day pulling out tables and
reformatting text. This little time saver has already made me more
productive!

Before I read your post, I had actually reverted to opening notepad, copying
into notepad to strip out the nasty stuff, and pasting into Outlook from
there.
Now my normal file has the macro and just have to do CTRL+SHIFT+V. Thanks!
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by
richj11
 December 19, 2007 4:41 PM PST  You can automate your toggling of quote
styles using macros. Here are mine (using Word 95).

To select the checkbox:

----------------------------
Sub Main
ToolsAutoCorrectSmartQuotes 1
End Sub
----------------------------

To clear the checkbox:

----------------------------
Sub Main
ToolsAutoCorrectSmartQuotes 0
End Sub
----------------------------

Taking time to create macros for your most used Options is great time saver
in the long run. They can be placed in a custom drop-down menu for quick
access.

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