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Technical forums » Office applications »
Strange Inverted Comma Formats
Thread poster: Paul Dixon
Paul Dixon
Paul Dixon  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 20:00
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Mar 14, 2008

I am translating a text from Portuguese to English in two columns, the left-hand column is the original Portuguese and I have to put the translation in the right-hand column alongside it. I am doing the translation independently, without using the technique of cut-and-paste followed by overwrite.

The problem is that inverted commas, when entered in the translation column, sometimes appear not "like this" as intended but sometimes »like this » or even „like this“ (these were c... See more
I am translating a text from Portuguese to English in two columns, the left-hand column is the original Portuguese and I have to put the translation in the right-hand column alongside it. I am doing the translation independently, without using the technique of cut-and-paste followed by overwrite.

The problem is that inverted commas, when entered in the translation column, sometimes appear not "like this" as intended but sometimes »like this » or even „like this“ (these were cut-and-pasted from the text although the included words have been left out). What could be happening? Apparently this happens completely at random. Is there any way of setting a default of "normal inverted commas"?

I had this problem previously when I had to overwrite a German text with an English translation from Portuguese. Apparently in German inverted commas have „this form“. As I could not change the format, I had to enter each pair of inverted commas individually using the Insert-Symbol feature (as indeed I have been doing with my current work as well), with great loss of time.

Please help. ▲ Collapse
 
Alexandra Beisl
Alexandra Beisl  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 01:00
English to German
+ ...
Change Language Mar 14, 2008

I am not sure which application you are using for this. If it is Word, you should change the language to English for the target language column, assuming that you have this language installed in Word, which is normally the case. That should then automatically insert the right (i.e. English) quotation marks.
 
Gerard de Noord
Gerard de Noord  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 01:00
Member (2003)
English to Dutch
+ ...
There must be French and German language settings Mar 14, 2008

Hi Paul

Select the English column in Word and apply English as the language with Tools/Language/Set Language. The smart quotes should be formatted right afterwards.

Regards,
Gerard
 


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