Apostrophe Apprehension

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 2:46 pm

I have a problem with Text Pad dictionary not recognizing the apostrophe in contractions, possessives and pluralized words. When I import text to Text Pad from other word processors the apostrophe imported is ANSII character 146. The native spell checker does not recognize these words using this character and will not suggest the alternative character ANSII 39 in its place. Prior versions, I assume, would import this character properly but the last several versions do not.

To test this out I would suggest you capture some text from an MSWord document with apostrophes (it's or person's) and copy paste it into a open Text Pad document. Then spell check it.

I am sure this is easily remedied. (Using TextPad 7.2.0 64 Bit)

â€™ ALT + 0146 is what is translated and not recognized

' ALT + 039 is what should be imported/translated to be recognized

ak47wong · Post by **ak47wong** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 3:05 pm

Isn't this the same question you asked here?

I can think of no solution other than what I suggested previously, or using the Replace function to replace all curly quotes with straight ones.

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 3:57 pm

Yes indeed. Same issue. Your suggestions, although nice workarounds, do not really solve the problem in a convenient fashion. I am beginning to think the issue could involve the Windows Paste Board function because the issue did not exist in former iterations of Windows. Not sure how far back though.

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 9:05 pm

It was interesting to find my Editor was using a 32 Bit version of TextPad 6 on his computer and his spell checker did not have this problem. He had problems saving words to a personal dictionary but did not have the apostrophe issue.

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 2:22 pm

I bombed my TextPad back to version 6 32 Bit from 7 and 64 Bit. This did not help... which leads me to believe I might be the only one suffering from this problem. If so it could be some external problem with my computer setup. Would be nice to hear from others who may have the same issue.

I am using a Dell computer with an up to date version of Windows 7 in 64 Bit format. I am using textPad with a standard Arial font but have tried numerous other fonts with no luck.

I am also aware that the designers of this product have quietly refused to update the spellchecker on this software in spite of many requests over the past 15 years or more to do so. This, of course, would bring them into the realm of almost every other software available to mankind but not only do they refuse to do so but they also refuse to explain why. Excellent software in every other respect but for this one thing.

miked · Post by **miked** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:18 am

Do you need to write with smart quotes? Word can be configured to use either code 146 or code 039. ( Word Options, Click Proofing, and then click AutoCorrect Options. In the AutoCorrect dialog box Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and under Replace as you type, select or clear the "Straight quotes" with â€œsmart quotesâ€� check box. )

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 12:33 pm

You are, of course, talking about MS Word. We do not use this because of the numerous hidden codes that can cause a great deal of grief once the copy is imported into InDesign. Machine quotes are far better for the editing and pre-layout stage. We then expect the desktop software to take care of the typography.

We are happy with TextPad because it does NOT do typography. For italics, for instance, we place <braces> around the word and manually change them to italics in InDesign rather than chance MS Word's ability to translate the code properly.

About 20 years ago we began using TextPad because it was the one package that imported cleanly into desktop publishing programs... that is until this problem arose. We may have to look around once again to see what is out there. Unfortunately we get no assistance from either Adobe or MicroSoft to solve problems... TextPad can be responsive when they want to but can also be maddeningly quiet on some issues.

Thanks for your interest.

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:28 am

Just to keep all of you updated... we have given up and simply set up a macro that replaces ANSI 147 and 148 with 34 and 145 and 146 with 39. This seems to work almost all the time.

We have noticed that this problem does not always come from our news service feed. Some does but the most consistent appears to be with web page copy/paste of text.

Thanks for the responses.

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 9:00 pm

We are soldiering on with this problem and have also found that if we can save our files in DOS and PC the copy will utilize the "dumb quotes" as we need instead of the "smart quotes" as now utilized by the TextPad designers.

My queries with another forum posed an interesting question;

Exactly why would the TextPad designers create a text that uses smart quotes knowing their own dictionary will not read them? HMMMM!

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 9:47 pm

I have another Question. A most important question. I have been posting a lot here but never asked it before.

DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THIS PROBLEM OR CAN THEY REPLICATE THE SAME ISSUE?

nvj1662 · Post by **nvj1662** » Thu Nov 27, 2014 7:39 am

I have just written [Itâ€™s or personâ€™s or even peoplesâ€™.] (without square brackets) into MS Word then cut & patse that into an open TP document. The TP spell check has no issue with "peoples'" but states that the oither two are not in its dictionary.

TP 7.3.0 (64bit) Word 14.0.7128.50000 (32bit) Windows 7 SP1 (64bit)

HTH.

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 3:00 pm

I have been a bit tardy in posting here. I have been assured this problem is being looked at and should be corrected by the next upgrade.

"Hi Morley,

Thanks for reporting this behaviour

It is a bug and it will be fixed in the next upgrade, so until then your current work around will have to suffice."

Morley · Post by **Morley** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 8:29 pm

This problem has been corrected in the latest version update. (7.5.1)

Many Thanks.