Hi guys!,


At present we seem to be having issues with punctuation marks when our service bureau outputs a quark file, the quotations marks and various other punctuation marks go missing.

1) We are coping and pasting text from Microsoft word into Quark, could this be the problem?

2) Also what are smart quotes for?

Help most appreciated!!
Bill

Yes probably cutting and pasting is what is causing the problem, especially if you are going from PC to MAC. This is usually when this happens for me. I think it is because the quotation marks are in different places on Mac vs PC fonts, I could be wrong though and it may only happen with single or double quotes. It usually also happens with bullets as well.

Can you place MS word file into a text frame in Quark? I think you can, try that instead or try changing the font. I use InDesign pretty much exclusively now unless a design uses quark that I need to print and even then I usually just convert it to InDesign.


Smart Quotes, if I'm accessing the data that has been stored at the back of my brain right, is the ability to use the right kind of quote, opening or closing depending if it is the begining or end of the quote. This could be causing your problem though you will still have other problems like bullets.

Much apreciated for the quick reply, I'll look into this further at another time, after I consult the chap from the bureau.

Also would you recommend Adobe indesign as opposed to Quark?

Cheers!!

Smart quotes are the proper kind of quote to use, whereas the more often seen and incorrect " is intented to be used only for deliniating numbers, such as inches as in 6' 8". Smart quotes have an open and closed version.

Great info
Thanks guys!!

Just to clarify, MS word uses an internal way of writing special carachters. So when you c/v text from it to any other non MS application, you will looses the formating.

Don't know if this helps, but if you are usnig php you can use the function on the following site to replace the word smart quotes with normal straight ones.

Replacing unwanted directional quote characters from documents pasted from Microsoft Word (http://www.really-useful-stuff.integri.net/mwiki/index.php/Replacing_unwanted_directional_quote_characters_from_documents_pasted_from_Microsoft_Word)