[wellylug] Quotes in M$Word docs, opened with OpenOffice

Gordon Paynter paynter at library.ucr.edu
Mon Mar 22 16:20:15 NZST 2004


> Opening M$Word documents in OpenOffice 1.1, quotation marks in the
> original (presumably Word smartquotes) appear as question marks. Is
> there a simple solution to this?

This is a font problem, not an OpenOffice problem.  OpenOffice is asking X
to display a smartquote character, but the font in use doesn't support it.

There are some free Microsoft fonts about, I think.  Debian has a package 
msttcorefonts which I think is supposed to install them.  I have not used
them, so I couldn't tell you how to set it up.


> They're obviously not actual ? characters, but rather a placeholder for
> something that OO or Linux can't cope with - searching for ? doesn't
> find them.
>
> I'd be grateful for any tips...

Here's a strategy I have used in the past on Macs, I'm not sure if it
works in OpenOffice:

In OpenOffice, select the ? character you want to change, use Edit>Copy to
copy it, then open the find and replace dialog, and paste into the "Find"
field.  Then type the "correct" character into the "Replace" field, and
tell it to replace all.

A bit of a trial if you're dealing with lots of documents, but it may be
useful for one-off situations.

HTH,
Gordon




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