Writing | Info Grooming

Avoid Web Display Problems from Punctuation in Microsoft Word

The following is a guest post by Christopher Knight from Ezine Articles. Although this post is written for article marketers, it’s good advice for anyone putting content from Word documents into any web page.

Microsoft Word Smart Quotes and Article Marketers Don’t Mix

By Christopher Knight

By default, Microsoft Word automatically changes straight quotation marks ( ‘ or ” ) to curly (smart or typographer’s) quotes as you type. This is fine if you are only authoring your works for applications not relating to article marketing. When smart quotes are converted to HTML, the quotes are converted to nonstandard characters which end up littering your document with question mark symbols and/or other garbage code.

When in doubt, don’t allow your Ezine Articles to contain smart quotes:

Most articles that are put into article marketing distribution eventually end up being sent to an e-mail newsletter audience. E-mail newsletter servers have near zero-tolerance for MS Word smart quotes; they will not recognize them as valid ASCII characters (because they are not valid). They are a figment of the Microsoft ASCII imagination. In most cases, they will show up as garbage code, thus making you, and your article, look like a real novice lacking proper formatting skills.

At risk are: quotes, apostrophes, double dashes, and 3 periods in a row.

This is what smart quotes look like when properly displayed:

smart quotes arent very smart

This is what standard quotes look like when properly displayed:

“smart quotes” aren’t very smart…

This is what smart quotes look like when not properly displayed:

âsmart quotesâ arenât very smartâ¦

Do you see the downside potential of leaving smart quotes in your articles that you put into distribution? Standard quotes use the lowest common denominator in the ASCII character standards world, and this ensures that your articles will look great in any HTML or text format.

How to disable Microsoft Words smart quotes

On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options, then click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
Under Replace as you type, select or clear the “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes” check box.

Alternatively, you can copy your entire MS Word document over to a non-Microsoft text editor (EditPlus, UltraEdit, TextPad, etc.) and do a simple search and replace. Search and replace the smart quotes into standard quotes, apostrophes, dashes, and dots if applicable.

Caution for authors who do HTML code for their articles in MS Word

Unless you have smart quotes disabled, it should be noted that smart quotes are not valid HTML code. Therefore, don’t even consider using MS Word to do HTML code unless you have the smart quotes feature disabled.

Article marketing smart quotes conclusion

Smart quotes are best left for e-books, physical books in print, PDF documents and any non-HTML related document. If you want to increase the portability of your EzineArticles, do the smart thing and turn off Microsoft Words smart quotes or do a search/replace before you upload your next article to the web.

About the author

Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best quality original articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ expert author community. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your content and links intact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Knight

http://EzineArticles.com/?Microsoft-Word-Smart-Quotes-and-Article-Marketers-Dont-Mix&id=15624

Reprinted with permission.

Write with Style–Better Writing with a Style Sheet

Online or on-line? Ten or 10? AM, a.m., or am? January 26, Jan. 26, or 1/26? Chicago, Illinois or Chicago, IL? U.N. or United Nations? Use a serial comma, or not? (That’s the last comma before and in a series of three or more. For example: Dick, Jane, and Harry went to the movies.)

Small decisions like these can slow you down when you write or edit what you’ve written. In longer pieces, you may lose track of decisions that you’ve made previously.

A style sheet can help you write and edit faster and more consistently. As you make your decisions, record them on a piece of paper or in a word processing file. Some decisions can be listed under categories such as punctuation, numbers, etc. Words can be simply be listed alphabetically. Include words that you have difficulty spelling. It’s faster to check the style sheet for troublesome words than to look them up repeatedly or to have your spell checker check them over and over.

By using the same style sheet for everything you write, you’ll soon become familiar with your personal style and will only need to refer to your style sheet from time to time. Book manuscripts and other long documents may need their own style sheets to include specialized terms specific to their subjects.

However, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. You can choose from many published style guides for assistance. Your choice will depend in part on your subject and type of writing. Frequently used style guides include The Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press 2009 Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, AMA Manual of Style, and Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Organizations and publishers often have a house style based on one of these, so take that into consideration if you are working for an organization or with a publisher. Choose a style guide and then supplement it with your personal style sheet.

Formatting Documents–Your Computer is Not a Typewriter

Although word processors have been used for many years now, many of the documents I edit still use formatting more suited to typewriters. Take advantage of your word processing software by using these simple formatting techniques:

Use italics and/or bold rather than underlining to emphasize words. Underlining was used on typewriters as a substitute for italics. Avoiding underlined words is especially important if your document will be converted for use on the web. Your reader will expect underlined words to be hyperlinks to Internet resources, so it’s misleading and frustrating if in fact the underlined words are not linked. Underlining is also especially problematic if your document contains Internet addresses (URLs) that contain underscores. The underlining obscures the underscores when the document is printed, again frustrating your reader.
Put a single space, not two, after periods. Two spaces are helpful in seeing sentences when a monospaced font, such as Courier, is used. With monospaced fonts, each letter takes up the same space, so it’s harder to see where sentences begin and end. However, in most cases, documents written with word processors use proportional fonts, where each letter takes only as much space as it needs. For example, in a proportional font, an i takes less space than m. Using just one space after periods will give your document a more professional appearance. It’s also friendly to the environment. In a longer document, using single spaces instead of two spaces after periods can shorten the document enough to save an extra page or two when printing. If you’re in the habit of using two spaces instead of one, you can use the find-and-replace feature of your software to make the change. Just search for two spaces and replace them with one space.
Avoid using hard returns, tabs, and/or spaces to create columns or tables. If you do, it will be more difficult to reformat the document. Changing the margins or font size will throw off your formatting. Instead, use the column or table functions of your software. Table borders can be turned off if you prefer not seeing the lines.

Major word processors like Microsoft Word contain many more advanced formatting options, such as styles, borders, shading, auto formatting, etc. The simple tips suggested above will take you far and position you well to take advantage of more advanced formatting techniques when you’re ready.