Dumb quotes to smart quotes in a long text, how?

lbruno · Post by **lbruno** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:03 am

Hi, I am new to Atlantis and I am trying to understand if it suits my needs.

I have some text files (some doc, odt or txt) with dumb quotes and I need to convert quotes in smart ones.
When I open the files in Atlantis, quotes are dumb; if I cut and paste text with dumb quotes, quotes remain dumb; if I research " and change to ", quotes remain dumb.
To convert dumb quotes to smart ones I have to retype them one by one. Is it the only way? Autocorrect and smart quotes options are not available in copy/paste?

Post by **admin** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:47 am

The AutoCorrect of Atlantis can be used after-you-type. Just choose the "Tools | AutoCorrect..." menu command of Atlantis to "correct" existing texts.

Elisabeth · Post by **Elisabeth** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:06 am

I'm new to the Forum, but I've been a low level user of Atlantis for some time, using it as a glorified electronic typewriter.

I've been clicking a few buttons and trying out some features.
I know we have a comprehensive 'Help' section and pop up tricks, but I'm not always able to access things quickly enough. *

I'm a writer and use and abuse just about anything I touch as I'm not really au fait with computer software.

I like to use a spreadsheet style for my characters and all the places, etc., they visit and run amuk and such.
Excel just doesn't cut it for me.
Can I do character studies with Atlantis or am I back to exercise books?

Oh, nearly forgot -
* I would absolutely love a weekly/fortnightly online class on how to drive Atlantis to success -

so would a couple of authors I edit for.

Thank you for reading this

Post by **admin** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:41 am

I am not sure that understand your question regarding character studies.

We are planning a set of video tutorials covering various features of Atlantis Word Processor.

Elisabeth · Post by **Elisabeth** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 2:49 am

admin wrote:I am not sure that understand your question regarding character studies.

We are planning a set of video tutorials covering various features of Atlantis Word Processor.

I use spreadsheets as a tracking device as I construct a work.

It is vitally important that what you use in Ch.1 still relates to the character in Ch.46.

If he is wearing beard, 6 ft tall in Ch.1, then he can't be clean shaven and/or 6ft 6 in Ch.46 - unless you do a massive re-write earlier on.

Authors aren't really good at keeping stats - they just write.

We also need to 'flesh' out our characters, make them believable and real to the reader. Make them stand up as real people.

This is only a tiny frustration of being a writer.

I've tried several 'writer' programmes and I keep coming back to Atlantis. You don't interfere when I'm writing with stupid pop-up stuff, you don't pop in other stuff I don't need, you just let me write.

I just want a small programme where I can line up my characters and keep track of them. Neatly.

Lis

Sammay Sarkar · Post by **Sammay Sarkar** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:20 am

You might want to do a google search with terms like "spreadsheet tracker", "software for writers" etc.

DoctorRob · Post by **DoctorRob** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:32 am

Elisabeth wrote: I like to use a spreadsheet style for my characters and all the places, etc., they visit and run amuk and such.
Excel just doesn't cut it for me.
Can I do character studies with Atlantis or am I back to exercise books?

For keeping track of novel characters etc you might find a notes organiser/freeform database useful, Elizabeth. A lot of them work a little like computerised index cards; you can type a brief description of a character onto one, or a setting onto another, and the programme will find the right card for you when you type in a keyword. A number of free ones are described at Gizmo's <http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-fr ... anizer.htm>, and you can follow the links to download the one you want. I've found them quite useful in the past, but at the moment I use the Atlantis clippy bank to keep track of my notes.

Rob

epobirs · Post by **epobirs** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:41 pm

http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/

You might find this useful. It's intended to perform a variety of organizational tasks for fiction writing.

epobirs · Post by **epobirs** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:50 pm

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

This is another product aimed at facilitating the writing process. This one has a lot of overlap on the word processing side, so it isn't clear how well it would integrate with Atlantis, which is probably stronger overall on the WP front. Unless, of course, Scrivener does tables...

Steve MB · Post by **Steve MB** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 2:40 pm

admin wrote:The AutoCorrect of Atlantis can be used after-you-type. Just choose the "Tools | AutoCorrect..." menu command of Atlantis to "correct" existing texts.

One addendum -- you may want to follow up with a global serach for " ‘" (space followed by left single curlyquote), ’cause some of ’em may be truncations that should, strictly speaking, begin with an apostrophe (aka right single curlyquote). This isn't an Atlantis problem in particular; automated algorithms just aren't up to consistently getting that distinction right.

The simplest solution is to put " ‘" (space followed by left single curlyquote) in the "Search" box, " ’" (space followed by right single curlyquote), and then look at each search result, selecting "Next" to leave it alone or "Replace" each time you find one that should be changed. (To be extra thorough, follow up with a similar search/replace hunt on "^p‘"/"^p’" to catch ones at the start of a paragraph.)

Atlantis Word Processor Forum

Dumb quotes to smart quotes in a long text, how?

Dumb quotes to smart quotes in a long text, how?

Writer's Cafe

Scrivener