Find and Replace

[erastes]

Twice in two days I’ve seen two different people say that they have to go through their entire manuscript and replace double quotes with single ones (or vice versa) manually.

why? why why why?

FIND AND REPLACE, people.  Don’t be frightened of it.  If you are methodical with it it’s a hugely handy tool.  Here’s the instructions for replacing single quotes with double ones.

1. FIND ‘

2. REPLACE “

(make sure of course your manuscript is using straight quotes in the first place, if the publisher wants curly quotes they can do them, but you should be using straights for your word processing.

Of course, what will happen is that you will end up with all your apostrophes as double quotes, but this is easily fixed too.

3. FIND “s

4. REPLACE ‘s

5. FIND s”

4. REPLACE s’

and so on.  Of course, you can run a swift spell check and it will easily change don”t to don’t etc

much much much quicker than doing it by hand, believe you me. 

You can also use this technique to standardise the space after your full stop to two spaces rather than one. That can also be fiddly, but still MUCH faster and reliable than scouring 300 or more pages and getting eyestrain.

Happy to do it for you, of course, for a small fee!

- - - -

Comments

[aunty_marion]

Dear ghod. People are doing that *manually*? Boggle.

Mind you, one space after full-stop is normal these days. Two was standard when things were done on tripewriters, because the spacing was so regular that one space often didn't show up. With proportional spacing, two looks too large, so personally I wouldn't bother with that unless a publisher/agent specified it particularly.

I use Find/Replace most of all for replacing paragraph marks - people use them to put space between paragraphs, and I use proper paragraph formatting to make more space between, so I usually do F/R to replace ¶ ¶ with just ¶. Then select all and format paragraphs to have 4 or 6 points after.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

We just have to take them out, completely. No spaces between paragraphs outside fanfic of course, other than between scenes.

The Chicago style guide now goes for one space, but most of the publishers I've encountered prefer it, so I tend to format that way, as they can easily remove them, and that's much easier than me unlearning the habits of 40 years. RPress changed it to one space, I noticed, but all the other pubs used two spaces.

[markprobst.livejournal.com]

I just had to delete all the extra spaces between sentences in a manuscript that someone sent me (hint: she is an author who uses a singlular penname and writes historical fiction) ;)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

You should have said - I could have easily done that for you. Linden Bay use double spaces, and since it's something I learned to do when I was 13, it's very hard to tell my thumbs otherwise!!

[rwday.livejournal.com]

Yes, find and replace is a fabulous tool for punctuation, but I still remember betaing one of your stories where you'd changed a character's name from Jack to Josh, and suddenly somebody was wearing a 'Joshet.' Or when I changed a name from John to Alex and had to edit out conversations about the American Civil War that referred to Alexny Rebs.

Which is why machines will never completely replace people, thank goodness!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*giggles* ah yes, the Joshet! :D

[markprobst.livejournal.com]

This is exactly the reason I NEVER use "replace all." It is just too damn dangerous!

[markprobst.livejournal.com]

Let me add this: Find and replace works beautifully when you click "replace" one by one. Each time you click "replace" it replaces the word then jumps to the next place in the MSS where the word is used. If you come across an instance where the word should NOT be replaced you just click "find next" and it skips to the next one. Much safer than "replace all."

[aunty_marion]

Also, using the 'more' button gives one the option to replace 'whole words only' and 'match case', which would eliminate Joshets.

[suryaofvulcan.livejournal.com]

That's far too logical for most people.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I couldn't believe it when I read this, in fact, I can't believe how many authors don't know HOW to format a mss in the first place. We are doing a "back to basics" theme on meta writer later in the month, and that's something I'm going to tackle.

[sleveen.livejournal.com]

Find and Replace is da bomb. I loves it, I does. :)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Apart from the Joshet, (see above) *laughs*

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Good God, I can't imagine anyone doing that by hand.

It takes a little logic sometimes--your apostrophe example is a good one--and more than one pass through the document, but jeez. So much easier--and more accurate-- than looking.

Automation is our friend.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I completely agree!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I love find/replace to bits but why are ""s unacceptable?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Without I dread to think what my mss's would be like...

[annebrooke.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Erastes! Much appreciated! I've done it like that before but I still end up having to go through the whole MS again anyway (which is brilliant for editing & proof-reading!) so it seems to take just as long - but easier on the hand your way for sure!

:))

Axxx

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Goodness, I've been using Find and replace for aes, couldn't live without it.
But I must be a dinosaur, I've been using double spaces at end of mss sentences and never noticed when it got changed. I did notice it when a co-writer always uses singletons, but I haven't seen anything specific on it as a general style change.
*That* is the kind of stuff that makes me feel aged!!

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

Unless I'm on an incredibly tight deadline, I'd actually rather do it by hand because I'm likely to trip over other things while I work on the whatever. But then, I'm massively into editing-by-hand and don't even use spellcheck, so.... [duck]

Angie