Help with default/options: no curly quotes

IfItsXorI · February 29, 2024, 9:58pm

We had a power outage in the middle of the night and my LO Writer was apparently loaded.

When I rebooted and re-started LO Writer, my Recent Documents list was empty, and my personal Template page was no longer there, although my personal templates were present in the default Templates page.

Unfortunately, I then made another backup yesterday without remembering that I would overwrite the previous days LO profile with the now “empty” profile.

However, my documents are working fine.

But … I am back to square one, spending hours trying to get my curly quotes to work.

I have updated from 7.5.4 Win64 to 7.6.5 Win64.

I have “AutoCorrect/Localized” Single Quotes set to U+2018, U+2019, and Double Quotes set to U+201C, U+201D, just as they were in 7.5.4, and after receiving help last year or so in attempting to understand how to “Apply” to get the curly single and double quotes.

The convention of referring quotes to “Replace” does not conform to what I am trying to understand.

I simply want to have my “Default” quotes work.

Why is there not a “Default” quotes? Why does our convention have to work around “Replace” when I (or we) just need to set my own defaults?

I have tried a new document: straight up quotes, just as get inserted in my older documents now.

I’ve been using PCs since 1985, and I seem to have lost touch with how to think about and understand how the seemingly infinite sub-cultures refer to their most basic settings and functions.

Please advise

EarnestAl · February 29, 2024, 10:30pm

Is Tools > AutoCorrect > While typing ticked?
What language does it show in the Status bar at the bottom? If set to None then there is no spell check and no AutoCorrect.
- If it says None then click Tools > Options > Languages and Locales > General and Ensure that Locale Setting is correct and Default Language for Documents > Western is set to the correct language
- For the current document to change from None, click Tools > Language > For all text and choose the correct language.

The keyboard just has a single key - straight quotes (") Writer replaces these with 2 separate “typographic quotes”, if set to do so. It is a replacement so Replace is what is happening.

Villeroy · February 29, 2024, 10:39pm

F11 (stylist window)
Right-click the default paragraph style and choose Edit …
On the “Font” tab choose language [None]
menu:File>Templates>Save… and save it under some name.
Every document derived from this template (Ctrl+Shift+N) will have all AutoCorrect options and spell check turned off.
If you want this setup for all Writer documents (Ctrl+N):
menu:File>Templates>Manage…
Right-click your new template and choose “Set default template”

IfItsXorI · February 29, 2024, 10:41pm

Al, thank you so much: I must never forget that “While typing” must be ticked/checked.
The Language was already set correctly to English (USA).

Somehow, that convention of the need to “correct” what I’m “typing” didn’t sink in deep enough.
I’ll trying to make a point of requesting that it be inserted in my dreams tonight, and make it a small mantra for the next few days

Looking at the WG71-Writer Guide again, (after many reads) the “select” directive is now effectively translated in my personal conventions as “checked”. The manual might consider using that glyph.

One thing that might help is that the bottom line in that menu – the line with the separating line above it – is indented just as the lines above, which did not “click” my brain to realizing there was an empty space waiting for the potential of a “check” above at the top.

Thank you once again.

IfItsXorI · February 29, 2024, 10:57pm

Al, I also very much appreciate your explanation for the convention: The keyboard has a single key for straight quotes and that is what is being replaced. Now I understand the “common sense” there, returning from a brain that had (mis)evolved as using the quotes key to always (when software allowed) wanting curly/smart quotes.

Thank you for that, as well.