ADJUSTMENTS TO THE GRID

While I was putting together a new book for Kindle I noticed a problem with the Punctuation Swap Grid. Several unlikely searches were missing.

By unlikely, I mean searches unlikely to find a hit in a typical manuscript. Apparently the thing I'm working on right now is shading a bit out of the typical.

Following the grid caused the reversal of a double quote mark. The situation was unusual: a bit of quoted text inside parentheses. It was the sort of thing ("Like this right here!") that is more likely to be found in a work of nonfiction.

It got me to thinking about other unusual bits of construction:

The quoted words after a dash—"Of which this would be an example."

"The situation that might come up with single quotes and dashes—'like this'—with or without parentheses ('like this')."

So I'm going to add a bit of instruction to the Swap Grid. I don't think I'll be getting back into Gimp and remaking the Grid itself. I'll just slip in a note to add a couple more test searches:

    --'

and

    ('

for single left quotes at the top of the list.

These are not Replace All searches. As with the two that are already there, you need to check each instance to make sure this is a legitimate left single quote (a quote within a quote) and not a case where a word is beginning with an apostrophe—which uses the right single quote mark.

As it stands, the next two searches on the Grid are for left double quotes, used for dialogue that begins at the start of a paragraph or is buried inside.

Add to that:

    --"

and

    ("

to make sure you're dealing with these rare situations in your manuscript.

Like the searches for left single quotes, you don't have to set up the Replace window right away. Just do a Find search and click Count to see if there are any to deal with. If you find some, Replace All.

(These instructions are for Notepad++. You are using Notepad++, aren't you?)