Ideas for converting straight quotes to curly quotes

Question

I have a file that contains \"straight\" (normal, ASCII) quotes, and I\'m trying to convert them to real quotation mark glyphs (“curly” quotes, U+2018 to U+201D). Since the tran

Answer 1

guess which curly quote character to use, if possible

It is not, in the general case.

The simple algorithm that most automatic converters use is just to look at the previous letter you typed before the ' or ". If it's a space, start of line, opening bracket or other opening quote, choose opening quote, else closing. The advantage of this method is that it can run as-you-type, so when it chooses the wrong one you can generally correct it.

we want to leave apostrophes alone

I agree! But not many people do. It's normal typesetting practice to turn an apostrophe into a left-facing single quote. Personally I prefer to leave them as they are, to distinguish them from enclosing quotes, making the text easier (I find) to read, and possible to process automatically.

However this really is just my taste and is not generally considered justified merely because the character is defined by the Unicode standard as being APOSTROPHE.

'tis possible apostrophes are at the beginning of words

Indeed. There is no way to tell an apostrophe from a potential open quote in cases like the classic Fish 'n' Chips, short of enormous amounts of cultural context.

(Not to mention primes, okinas, glottal stops and various other uses of the apostrophe...)

The best thing to do, of course, is install a keyboard layout that can type smart quotes directly. I have ‘’ on AltGr+[], “” on AltGr+Shift+[], –— on AltGr+[Shift]+dash, and so on.