[Upstream] [hardy] Proper smart-quotes on decade abbreviations

[aleneguou]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

When writing an abbreviation for a decade, such as "the '80s" for the 1980s, the apostrophe points the wrong way -- it acts as if it were opening a quoted passage, when it should be pointed toward the implied "century." It is annoying to have to manually clean up after these smart quotes errors. The same with some archaic contractions like [i]'tis or [i['twas, etc.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Feb 12 06:26:49 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: openoffice.org-writer 1:2.3.1-3ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: i386
SourcePackage: openoffice.org
Uname: Linux wobbly 2.6.24-7-generic #1 SMP Thu Feb 7 01:29:58 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

What did you do to get it to do angled quotes? For me it just uses what appears to be straight up and down quote marks without any angling. I have attached an example picture zoomed in with xmag.

Thanks,

Chris Cheney

[aleneguou (alexandergould)]

On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 23:21 +0000, Chris Cheney wrote:
> What did you do to get it to do angled quotes? For me it just uses what
> appears to be straight up and down quote marks without any angling. I
> have attached an example picture zoomed in with xmag.

That's funny, I didn't have to do anything to get it to do angled
quotes. Check your "auto-correct" settings (in the "tools" menu")?

I have attached an .odt file with examples.

Thanks, Alex

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Alex,

Please attach the examples via the launchpad web interface, they didn't seem to make it onto the bug tracker.

Thanks,

Chris Cheney

[aleneguou (alexandergould)]

Okay, trying again...

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Ah, I see now, you have single quote replacement enabled for it to replace the straight up and down single quote with the curved quote. It is doing what you ask it to do under AutoCorrect->Custom Quotes->Single Quotes->Replace...

[aleneguou (alexandergould)]

I do not think this bug is invalid. The auto-correct function for custom quotes chooses which way they should curve based on their context. In the case of apostrophes in special contractions where the first part is implicit, such as decade abbreviations like "the '80s," the function chooses the wrong direction. So the user has to go back and manually fix every one, or not use automatic typographic quotes at all (which in most cases is even worse).

In the English language, the smart quotes feature should be able to check for a single quote before a two digit number, optionally followed by an s, that is not complemented by a matching closing single quote (preceded by a character and followed by a space) in the paragraph. This single quote mark should point left, away from the number, toward the implied century. The same rule should look for matches to a list of archaic contractions of "it" and a verb and behave similarly, such as 'twas, 'twere, 'twill, 'tis, 'twasn't, 'tain't, etc. I don't know if similar rules apply in other languages.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

As best as I can tell the 'smart' quotes replace a " 'foo" with left curly quote and a "foo' " with the right curly quote, it doesn't seem to be any smarter than that. I will reopen the bug and mark it as upstream.

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

[This is an automated message.]
There are no new official OpenOffice.org releases in Ubuntu packaging anymore => Won't Fix

If the problem persists, please mark this bug as "also affects project Libreoffice" or "also affects distribution Libreoffice (Ubuntu)" if that has not happened already.

Please leave references to upstream OpenOffice.org bugs in place to allow cross pollination.