Typographic quotes - settings

[CLC]

Hi Serif,
is there a plan for support other than simple typographic quotes for all Affinity Products, especially Publisher?

Different langues require different types of quotes, in example, in my country, we quote with so called „9966 curly quotes“ (← example included).

Thanks for your response, I just hope it's on a roadmap

CLC

[Alfred]

Shouldn’t this be largely language-dependent? If I translate « Importer depuis Photos » into English, it seems inappropriate to present it as « Import from Photos ».

[walt.farrell]

32 minutes ago, CLC said:

is there a plan for support other than simple typographic quotes for all Affinity Products, especially Publisher?

It's already supported in Publisher.

Preferences for Auto-Correct allow you to specify that typographic quotes should be used, and the Spelling Language you set in the Character Panel then influence how Publisher handles the " character.

There's also an option for handling single quotes.

[CLC]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

Shouldn’t this be largely language-dependent? If I translate « Importer depuis Photos » into English, it seems inappropriate to present it as « Import from Photos ». 

Indeed. Currently, it seems it seems to be (again) automatic (application/system wise).

When I use English version of Adobe Creative Suite while I'm setting documents in multiple languages, each of the languages uses different kind of quotes and I can easily switch (choose) type of those typographic quotes (thus making 6 language versions of the same brochure is a breeze).

Seems something like that is not yet possible in any of the Affinity products, am I right?

 

56 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It's already supported in Publisher.

Preferences for Auto-Correct allow you to specify that typographic quotes should be used, and the Spelling Language you set in the Character Panel then influence how Publisher handles the " character. 

There's also an option for handling single quotes.

Thank you, but how about the scenario I mentioned above?

Also, what if the languages I'm setting text in aren't on the Spelling Language list?
Does it mean I can use Publisher only to set text in supported languages?

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, CLC said:

Thank you, but how about the scenario I mentioned above?

Also, what if the languages I'm setting text in aren't on the Spelling Language list?
Does it mean I can use Publisher only to set text in supported languages?

If that scenario is the one in your post, where you're using multiple languages, Publisher will use different quote marks depending on the language. This is automatic, as far as I can see.

For languages not supported by Publisher I can only assume that you'll need to set the proper quote marks yourself. Or, if there's some way to get them changed automatically I haven't seen it.

Why not install Publisher and play with this yourself? It's available free for anyone to install while it's in public beta.

[CLC]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If that scenario is the one in your post, where you're using multiple languages, Publisher will use different quote marks depending on the language. This is automatic, as far as I can see.

For languages not supported by Publisher I can only assume that you'll need to set the proper quote marks yourself. Or, if there's some way to get them changed automatically I haven't seen it.

Why not install Publisher and play with this yourself? It's available free for anyone to install while it's in public beta.

You probably don’t understand @walt.farrell - I’m never asking a question without “playing with the software” as you describe it, for hours first. I am not a redditor who goes to the forums to ask questions if he’s lazy to find out -  I just refuse to use beta products marked not ready for production (Designer/Photo customer betas) but have spent hours attepting to work with Publisher beta to find out if it´s a possible replacement for InDesign. Not impressed so far - I feel it’s actually in early pre-alpha stage. Even automatic typographic settings are wrong here... with font size 10 pt, software should default to 12 pt line height (but Auto settings defaults to the very 10 pt, thus not leaving enough space for accented characters. Another step user has to do every time, over and over...)

My question isn’t Publisher-specific, the same goes with Designer and Photo - both apps can and will be used to setup multi-language documents and should include such options, no matter if you think some other app should do the job. It’s up to an user to decide what product suits them to achieve their goal. I know, to this day, several designers who use Photoshop - yes, Photoshop - to design and complete hundred pages long catalogs, because they are visually-oriented people and dislike QuarkXPress, InDesign, or Scribus’ workflow. It’s their decision and we are not here to tell them they are doing it wrong, because there is another app they should work with.

Also - I want more user control and less automatic behavior from Affinity. Nearly everytime any software does such automatic changes by itself, without my interaction, I’m pulling my hair off. I believe it’s just wrong. 

In this specific case, there are also many languages that are similar to each other, use very same accented characters that would suggest it’s the same language, but they use very, very different typographic conventions (curly quotes, different punctuation, different metrics and even keening values for some kerning pairs ie). Even google translate often fails to recognise them from each other -  Affinity won’t ever be smarter there, no matter what you might want it to be... Such options like this should always be under users control, never automagic.

Setting up a brochure (thus need for multiple quote settings) on different (and in some cases even the same) pages in 6, 10 or 12 languages within one document isn’t an uncommon scenario - quite contrary - think of user manuals, and should deffinitely be addressed by a professional layout application.

Let me ask you a personal question, Walt - are you a professional working in printing industry, or a hobbyist?

Disclaimer: typing this on my phone, I apologise for probable typos.

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, CLC said:

Let me ask you a personal question, Walt - are you a professional working in printing industry, or a hobbyist?

Hobbyist. So your experiences and needs will be different from mine.

The way you phrased your questions did not indicate that you had tried Publisher, as aspects of them are clearly answered by a bit of experimentation, and you did not indicate that you had tried. My apologies if I offended you in any way.

Regarding Publisher vs Designer vs Photo, and what applications need what tools: I believe that when the additional Publisher Personas are activated it may become less necessary to have every tool in every application. But we will need to wait until that happens to know how they will really operate.

[CLC]

27 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Hobbyist. So your experiences and needs will be different from mine.

The way you phrased your questions did not indicate that you had tried Publisher, as aspects of them are clearly answered by a bit of experimentation, and you did not indicate that you had tried. My apologies if I offended you in any way.

Regarding Publisher vs Designer vs Photo, and what applications need what tools: I believe that when the additional Publisher Personas are activated it may become less necessary to have every tool in every application. But we will need to wait until that happens to know how they will really operate.

Thanks for your honest answer @walt.farrell.

Well, I included a screenshot from 2 decades old InDesign 2 showing what I'd love Affinity was able to offer. Not just Publisher, but also Designer and Photo, since you can set text in both and it's annoying and complicated to prepare texts outside of an app that simply does have text tool, Text Studio panels and stuff... I thought it's obvious I'd like exactly the same option, no automatic feature. I'd like to be in control of that feature. No feelings hurt, I was just interested if there are any plans to implement such an option and specifically started my message by "Hi Serif" greeting, hoping I'd get an answer from the staff.

I started with Photoshop version 2.5 (didn't even have layers support back then), used Page Maker, later QuarkXPress (still imo one of the best tools ever) and Illustrator since version 3. Then, when Adobe killed PageMaker, InDesign came to the town. I can't forget how version 2.0 had a huge error that doubled file size on each save. Yes, the world was way slower back then, we didn't need to rush that much and we patiently waited till Adobe released a pach that fixed this, it took over 6 months, but hey, all we had to was use workarounds and do Save As instead, incrementing digit at the end of the filename (sounds familiar  right?). Nice times. Of course, since many people send me their data as CDR, I have to fire up CanadianJoke (TM) once a while and cry and whine and pull my hair out way more than with Affinity. That software is almost as old as Illustrator (talking CorelDraw! in case you missed the joke .

I really like Affinity, very much. Alywas until I attempt to do any reasonable job with it. For causual photo editing, Photo is good. Loving frequency separation ie, and some nice live filters. For causual vector drawing, Designer is ok. For a professional use (and that's how it's marketed by Serif) it's sadly not that ok, imho. Anyway, I bought both Photo and Designer for Mac and PC and sometimes even use it, when I got spare time (not that often) and until both are grown up enough, I will have to pay my monthly rent to Adobe hoping that one day, maybe... However, I probably won't buy Publisher until I see here, on the forums, that people don't complain how Publisher breaks their basic ux and workflow. I've learnt my lesson.

Your suggestion about Publisher's personas is very optimistic and I hope you're going to get what you need for your job to be done

Cheers,
CLC

[photopro]

just discovered this after affinity sent an email saying designer doesn't have "smart" quotes—what us designers used to call them:

For mac:

Option + open bracket = Open double quotes

Option + shift + open bracket = Close double quotes

 

Option + close bracket = Open single quote

Option + shift + close bracket is = Closed single quote

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, photopro said:

just discovered this after affinity sent an email saying designer doesn't have "smart" quotes

No, it's only in Publisher.

[Jonatan_Ronsholdt]

Hi there!

 

I realize this is an older post... But I haven't been able to figure out a current solution to this double quotation mark problem.

So this works:

On 1/19/2020 at 4:28 AM, photopro said:

Option + open bracket = Open double quotes

Option + shift + open bracket = Close double quotes

– But... How can it be that I have to use a shortcut to get Typographers / double Quotation marks...? Or go to Text > Insert > Quotation Marks > ... ?

 

When the settings under  Auto-Correct:  ☑️ "Change straight quotes to typographic quotes"  &   ☑️ "Support language dependent single typographic quotes"  are both enabled, when (on a danish Macbook keyboard, and the Character > Language > Spelling set to "Danish")  I type the quote character:

 

" (text) "

– It is changed into:

» (text) «

 

– Which I suppose is what counts as "typographic quotes"... But I very much agree with @CLC here... Why on earth does this now seem to be the only option??? Why am I not able to change it into different kinds of Double quotes as @CLC showed an old Adobe InDesign example of:

On 5/27/2019 at 6:37 PM, CLC said:

?

 

It (Publisher) doesn't seem to live up to professional typographic standards if you're not even able to change the type of automatically changed typographic quotation marks.

Or am I missing something here?

 

Best,
Jonatan.

[Jowday]

On 12/7/2020 at 3:00 PM, Jonatan_Ronsholdt said:

I realize this is an older post... But I haven't been able to figure out a current solution to this double quotation mark problem.

I did - just today - used Publisher latest beta to give it a test run on a commercial piece of work. A really simple one. One I could complete in a cheap word processor. with a few creative tricks Well, it wasn't fun. I discovered this problem too with a Danish keyboard. And the total lack of features. But a hole lot UI element and panels. I didn't use Publisher much before this little trial. 10 minutes and I had discovered several jawdropping issues.

The solution was simple. I returned to InDesign 2021 and finished the job. 

There is no user experience designer in Serif. I am also beginning to think this small company is working isolated in their bunker and does not have a commercial network. Or professional customers of any significant size. There are so many of these shortcomings in the Affinity line that reminds me more of an open source project than a commercial product. And they stick to bad decisions for years and years.

You just don't make so many - SO MANY mistakes - in five years without a major root cause. And I am afraid there is no vaccine against it on its way.