Re: Directional quotes in html

[Christian Moe <mail@christianmoe.com>]

On 12/6/11 9:37 PM, Herbert Sitz wrote:
> Question: Does this work only if quotes both appear on the same line of Org-mode
> text?  Or is the regex applied to paragraph as a whole after it's been assembled
> as part of export?

Oops, that's embarrassing. I never even noticed. I'm not sure why it 
doesn't work -- the regexp /does/ catch multiline quotes.

Anyway, after some experimenting, the following mess seems to work in 
most cases:

#+begin_src
(setq org-export-html-special-string-regexps
       (append
        '(("\\(^\\|[ \"(]\\)'" . "\\1‘")
	 ("\\([^ ]\\)'" . "\\1’")
	 ("\\(^\\|[ (]\\)\"" . "\\1“")
	 ("\"\\([ [:punct:]]\\|$\\)" . "”\\1"))
	org-export-html-special-string-regexps))
#+end_src

At least, it should work
- if the opening single or double quotation mark comes at the 
beginning of the line, after a space, or after opening parenthesis,
- or if the opening single quotation mark comes after an opening 
double quotation mark,
- and if the closing double quotation mark comes before a space, 
before punctuation, including a closing parenthesis, or at the end of 
the line.

It will work if you put the period /after/ the closing quotation mark, 
"like this". Typographically, though, you should do it "like this."

>
> It looks like it does only double-quotes; makes me realize single quotes are a
> bit harder because they're often used alone as apostrophes.

The above now also handles single quotes, including apostrophes 
between word characters ("it's"). The rule is that any single quote 
that is not an opening quote is turned into a closing quote, which 
works for apostrophes too.

It also handles nested quotes (single quotes within double quotes). 
The following example should illustrate parentheses and nested quotes:

#+begin_example
Philosophy ain't easy ("being" is a surprisingly difficult concept,
but not as hard as "non-being"). Who said: "'Being' is a surprisingly
difficult concept, but not as hard as 'non-being'"?
#+end_example

> It seems like even
> single-quote pairs could work well if you put beginning-of-word (\<) and
> end-of-word (\<) regex anchors in there.

I've experimented with those anchors, but ended up doing without them; 
punctuation mixes with quotation marks in odd ways.

Yours,
Christian