Is there a "Smart Quotes" setting somewhere?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Hi.

I am typing directly into a Flare project, and instead of getting nice and pretty curly quote marks, it just sticks the bog-standard straight ones in.

Is there a setting anywhere (as there is in Word) for ' and " to be converted automatically to curly quotes as you enter them?

If not, is there a nice neat way to search and replace through all the topics at once, rather than having to open every topic separately?

[bobmoon]

I don't think Flare has a way to type in smart quotes or curly quotes like Word does. I found this thread where the issue was discussed in 2009.

It is possible to do a search and replace in Flare, but that seems very tedious. You'd have to search for the basic quote character in the source to replace all the ones that should be open quotes, then search again to replace all the close quotes.

If you want to go that route, here's a way to approach it:
1. Open a topic in the Internal Text Editor.
2. In the text editor, enter this: “text”.
3. Save and go back to the XML Editor, where you'll see the curly quotes.
4. Copy the open quote character to the clipboard.
5. Click Edit > Find and Replace.
6. Type " in the Find what field, and paste from the clipboard into the Replace with field.
7. If you want to replace in just the open topic, click Find Next. If you want to replace across the project, change Find in to (whole project) and click the Start button.

I would also go to the Enhancement Request page and request the ability to do curly quotes. MadCap do listen to customer feedback, each time someone complains, it becomes that much more likely they'll add the feature.

Bob

[ChoccieMuffin]

Hi Bob

Thanks for the tip - didn't notice the "find in project" bit before, so for other global changes I've been tediously opening, searching and closing topics all over the place.

Also good to have the codes to search for, though copying and pasting from Word seems to do the trick too.

And I've added an enhancement request, as it's really tedious not being able to have the quotes looking pretty without having to jump through hoops, particularly for printed material.

[bobmoon]

I understand the learning curve, er "cliff," you're facing. Some parts of Flare seemed utterly foreign to me when I started with it. It took me a while to grasp how to use Find and Replace--the functionality is there but the interface wasn't intuitive.

Part of the difference when you're coming from Word or Frame is that Flare has two "layers"--the XML layer and the WYSIWYG layer. This gives Flare much of its power, but also makes some things clumsy and confusing. If you're familiar with RoboHelp or XML editors, that learning curve is manageable, but the leap from Word is especially daunting. Still, once you're up and running, the benefits are tremendous!

Bob

[Don Barwick]

There is now a setting to convert quotes to smart quotes as you type. Not sure when it was added.
Select File - Options, then on the XML Editor tab, tick Replace straight quotes with smart quotes.