Convert|Quotes|Adjust Quotes

On the Colors and Syntax page in the file type configuration you can select a syntax coloring scheme for each file type. A syntax coloring scheme can specify that certain straight quotes should be converted into smart quotes or that certain smart quotes should be converted into straight quotes.

The Adjust Quotes item in the Quotes submenu of the Convert menu is only enabled when the syntax coloring scheme used for the active file specifies such quote conversion rules. Click it to convert the selected text according to the scheme’s quote conversion rules. If there is no selection, the command converts the quotes on the line that the cursor is on.

The syntax coloring scheme specifies which straight quotes can be converted to smart quotes and which straight quotes that smart quotes can be converted into. This allows the syntax coloring scheme to ensure that characters that are part of the file’s syntax are not converted. The HTML scheme, for example, specifies that straight single and double quotes within the body text should be converted to smart quotes. It does not allow any quote conversion in HTML tags because those use quotes to delimit attribute values. Thus when you use Adjust Quotes on an HTML file, EditPad converts the quotes that the reader will see into smart quotes, while leaving the quotes that are part of the HTML syntax alone.

EditPad Pro can convert single quotes, double quotes, backticks, and less-than and greater-than signs into smart quotes. It can convert smart quotes back to those characters. But the syntax coloring scheme can restrict the quote conversion to only some of these characters. The Delphi language, for example, uses single straight quotes to delimit strings. The Delphi syntax coloring scheme allows double straight quotes to be converted to smart quotes in strings. It does not allow single straight quotes to be converted because that would break the string. If you do want to have smart single quotes inside a Delphi string, you can select the single straight quotes you want to convert and use Convert|Quotes|Straight ⇒ Smart Quotes to force the conversion.

The syntax coloring scheme does not specify the style of smart quotes that should be used. You can choose that via Convert|Quotes|Quotation Style. It uses the settings in the same way as Convert|Quotes|Straight ⇒ Smart Quotes and Convert|Quotes|Smart ⇒ Straight Quotes. The settings are described in detail in those topics. If the syntax coloring scheme does not allow certain characters to be converted, then any options using them are implicitly turned off.

In the Quotation Style dialog you can also tick “replace smart quotes before adjusting quotes”. If you do then Adjust Quotes does what Convert|Quotes|Replace Smart Quotes does before converting between straight and smart quotes according to the syntax coloring scheme. This can be useful if you’re pasting text that may contain straight quotes or smart quotes in a different style that you want to convert to your chosen smart quotation style. Then you need only use Adjust Quotes to do both conversions.

If you’d like the quote conversion based on the syntax coloring scheme to happen automatically as you enter text, turn on Convert|Quotes|Auto Adjust Quotes.

Convert|Quotes|Adjust Quotes

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