localised typography for Textile

Skubidu · 2006-09-17 11:29:16

In one of the latest revisions there are some changes in the way Textile converts quotes. It is now possible to define the kind of quotes on a per language base, e.g. „this“ instead of “that”. As Zem said this is a trial run and maybe it will be possible in the future to have different typographical settings for every language:

It’d be helpful if someone could collect examples of localized punctuation from various languages, so we can see the scope of the problem. Perhaps on the Translation forum.

That’s what this topic is for.

By now, the following adjustments are made by Textile:

'... > quote (single open): ‘ (‘)
...' > quote (single close): ’ (’)
"... > quote (double_open): “ (“)
..." > quote (double_close): ” (”)
... > ellipsis: … (…)
-- > em dash: — (—)
- > en dash:  –  ( – )
x > dimension sign: × (×)
(tm) > trademark: ™ (™)
(r) > registered: ® (®)
(c) > copyright: © (©)

Which things have to be handled differently in certain languages? e.g. (non-breaking) spaces, en dashes instead of em dashes …
Which things are missing in this list for a good typografy in other languages than English?

Last edited by Skubidu (2006-09-17 13:09:02)

Skubidu · 2006-09-17 11:49:30

German

quotation marks

There are two valid ways to use quotes in German:

„…“ („...“) / ‚…‘ (‚...‘)
»…« (»...«) / ›…‹ (›...‹)

At the same time, there should be the possiblity to use apostrophs Gibt’s denn das? (’) or inches 24″ iMac (I think it should be ″).

non-breaking spaces

There should be a non-breaking space before the en dash.
If there is an space before an ellipsis this space should be converted to an non-breaking space.

special charakters

Concerning special characters like © there should be a conversion of € to €.

problems

In German there is the possibility to write jede(r) to adress men and women at the same time. At the moment Textile converts this to jede®

Last edited by Skubidu (2006-09-17 12:57:57)

zem · 2006-09-17 23:56:01

Regarding languages with multiple quote styles: how would you usually enter these in a document? Are any of the quote characters available as keys on a localized keyboard, or are you stuck with US/qwerty typewriter “dumb” quote keys?

Skubidu · 2006-09-18 07:16:58

In German, you just write "quote" (shift + 2) and programms like Word (or something similar) convert these quotes to the typographical equivalent. If you need special characters you have to use the “charset table” (I don’t know, if that’s the right english word). More common in normal texts (letters etc.) is the use of „these quotes“ but in books you normally see »these«. I think it’s the same in Austria, but in Switzerland (where they have French, Italian and German as official languages) they use «these kind of quotes».

This is how a German keyboard looks like: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Qwertz_de.svg

Last edited by Skubidu (2006-09-18 07:21:30)

zem · 2006-09-18 22:02:11

What I mean is, how would you normally enter each of the four quote styles („…“, ‚…‘, »…«, ›…‹)? Presumably a word processor’s Smart Quotes feature would map the " and ' keys to the first two styles. What about the second two? Do you enter those manually using the character table?

marios · 2006-09-19 00:07:50

(«…»,‹…›,“…„,‘…‚ ) would be the quote styles used in modern greek.
On Mac OS, choosing the keyboard Viewer makes it easier to see, what’s going on.
If I press the option modifier key, I can access the first greek modern quoting style, which is there, where the
squared brackets on US layout are.
The second style is in the same place, as in US layout.
The third and forth quoting style comes available with option command, to start a quote, and option command shift to close a quote.
However, I can not use the third and forth quoting style, not really sure, why that is.

See also this <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark”>Wikipedia article</a> for a multilingual summary of quoting styles.

Also of Interest, this article about <a href=“http://webdesign.crissov.de/Typographie”>German Typography</a> ( really good one)

Regarding the quotes, I think<code> <quote></quote> and <cite></cite></code>
and using CSS for that is more flexible.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2006-09-19 00:35:48)

zem · 2006-09-19 00:58:58

If I press the option modifier key, I can access the first greek modern quoting style, which is there, where the
squared brackets on US layout are. The second style is in the same place, as in US layout

Can you elaborate on this please. What do you mean by “access”? There are 8 quote characters above (4x open, 4x close). Are you saying you have 8 quote characters on a Greek keyboard?

To put it another way: what quotation mark keys are normally used? And what glyphs do they produce?

In English, there are 3 quote mark keys: single quote ', double quote ", and backtick `. "double" or 'single' quotes would normally be converted by software into “smart” ‘quotes’. The backtick is not normally used for typography.

Skubidu · 2006-09-19 06:27:09

In German we use " and ' to enter the quotes and they are converted automatically by software into smart quotes. Depending on the programm settings either „…“ / ‚…‘ or »…« / ›…‹ are used. If you don’t have software that converts the quotes, you need to use character table or you have to leave the quotes like "that" (which is typographically wrong). There are also accents on the keyboard like ´ or ` but these should not be used as quotes.

Skubidu · 2006-09-19 06:33:17

Regarding the quotes, I think <quote></quote> and <cite></cite>
and using CSS for that is more flexible.

I’m not sure about that. First of all, the normal user is more familiar with using "quotes" than with using <quote> or <cite>. And by the way: Not everything in “quotes” is really a quote. Often it is just an accentuation.

wet · 2006-09-19 07:54:22

There’s a problem with ticks mistakenly recognized as single quotes in that context:

Weisst du, wie's da steht?

results in:

Weisst du, wie‘s da steht?

Typographically correct glyph would be:

Weisst du, wie’s da steht?

So there’s certainly a need for a “non quote” tick glyph (also required by the english saxon genitive).

wet · 2006-09-19 08:05:26

Skubidu wrote:

either „…“ / ‚…‘

I consider the closing quotes inclined into the wrong direction, and would rather expect this:

„…”

Are you sure about that?

Skubidu · 2006-09-19 08:12:57

Are you sure about that?

It should be 99-66 but that is not clearly visible if you use Verdana as font. What you entered looks more like the expected quotes, but in fact it’s 99-99. Change the font of the forum via the web developer toolbar to Arial, Times or something else and you will see, what I mean…

So, yes I’m sure about that :)

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#1 2006-09-17 11:29:16