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Web site to fix punctuation formatting in Free Republic posts
January 15, 2015 | me

Posted on 01/15/2016 6:41:54 AM PST by reaganaut1

I have found that the site Replace smart quotes with regular straight quotes fixes the problem Free Republic recently has with quotes and dashes. For example, a New York Times article As Germany Welcomes Migrants, Sexual Attacks in Cologne Point to a New Reality that when originally pasted looks like this:

COLOGNE, Germany — In early December, the Cologne police made their New Year’s Eve preparations. Drawing on the previous year’s experience, they identified their biggest worry as pickpocketing and fireworks among the crowds. So they increased their holiday deployment, to 142 from 88, concentrating on the banks of the Rhine River, where revelers traditionally gather for a giant fireworks display.

As 2016 neared on Dec. 31, however, some 1,500 men, including some newly arrived asylum seekers and many other immigrants, had instead assembled around Cologne’s train station. Drunk and dismissive of the police, they took advantage of an overwhelmed force to sexually assault and rob hundreds of people, according to police reports, shocking Germany and stoking anxieties over absorbing refugees across Europe.

“We were just pressed on all sides by people,” recalled one victim, Johanna, 18, who agreed to speak by telephone from Lake Constance, Germany, where she lives, only if her last name was not used, fearing hostility, particularly over social media. “I was grabbed continually. I have never experienced such a thing in any German city.”

becomes this

COLOGNE, Germany -- In early December, the Cologne police made their New Year's Eve preparations. Drawing on the previous year's experience, they identified their biggest worry as pickpocketing and fireworks among the crowds. So they increased their holiday deployment, to 142 from 88, concentrating on the banks of the Rhine River, where revelers traditionally gather for a giant fireworks display.

As 2016 neared on Dec. 31, however, some 1,500 men, including some newly arrived asylum seekers and many other immigrants, had instead assembled around Cologne's train station. Drunk and dismissive of the police, they took advantage of an overwhelmed force to sexually assault and rob hundreds of people, according to police reports, shocking Germany and stoking anxieties over absorbing refugees across Europe.

"We were just pressed on all sides by people," recalled one victim, Johanna, 18, who agreed to speak by telephone from Lake Constance, Germany, where she lives, only if her last name was not used, fearing hostility, particularly over social media. "I was grabbed continually. I have never experienced such a thing in any German city."


TOPICS: Free Republic
KEYWORDS: format; fr; frpinctuation; frpunctuation; html; quotes; smartquotes
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To: mountn man

I have windows 7 and never saw the problem until windows 10 rolled out. Maybe the timing is a coincidence.

I’ve cut and pasted straight quotes from FR and had the correct the hieroglyphics.


21 posted on 01/15/2016 7:04:07 AM PST by dynoman (Objectivity is the essence of intelligence. - Marylin vos Savant)
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To: dynoman

I use Mac OS X and I still get the funky characters.


22 posted on 01/15/2016 7:07:30 AM PST by erod (Chicago Conservative | Cruz or Lose!)
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To: reaganaut1

I’ve been using this site, but why did the problem pop up all of a sudden?


23 posted on 01/15/2016 7:08:28 AM PST by HomerBohn (Liberals and slinkies: they're good for nothing, but you smile as you shove them down the stairs.)
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To: perfect_rovian_storm

When this problem first cropped up, JR said they were working on a fix. That was before Thanksgiving.


24 posted on 01/15/2016 7:10:00 AM PST by HomerBohn (Liberals and slinkies: they're good for nothing, but you smile as you shove them down the stairs.)
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To: mountn man

Me too


25 posted on 01/15/2016 7:11:00 AM PST by HomerBohn (Liberals and slinkies: they're good for nothing, but you smile as you shove them down the stairs.)
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To: thackney; John Robinson
Hoping John solves the problem soon.
46 posted on 11/5/2015, 2:26:53 PM by Jim Robinson

It's been two months. Does JohnRob have any timeline?

26 posted on 01/15/2016 7:15:07 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (Big government is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: mountn man

As lowly linux user, I still see the odd characters.

My guess is the choice of character encoding has changed?


27 posted on 01/15/2016 7:18:35 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT (BINGO!)
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To: DUMBGRUNT
As lowly linux user, I still see the odd characters.

I've known you for 16-17 years.
You've always hung out with strange characters.

28 posted on 01/15/2016 7:30:44 AM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life, Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: mountn man

I won’t point any fingers, but it should be noted that, birds of a feather flock together.

Or so they say.


29 posted on 01/15/2016 7:33:13 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT (BINGO!)
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To: dynoman

No way it’s a Windows 10 problem. This site runs on Linux. I can repro the issue by copying abd pasting a post from my iPad. No Windows involved there.

You Windows bashers amaze me...


30 posted on 01/15/2016 7:45:38 AM PST by Scutter
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To: reaganaut1
This is not a "fix."
If it's not transparent, with no additional work by hundreds of thousands of visitors, it's not a fix!
31 posted on 01/15/2016 7:56:59 AM PST by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW! evil ignorant stupid or crazy-doesn't matter!)
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To: reaganaut1
This is not a "fix."
If it's not transparent, with no additional work by hundreds of thousands of visitors, it's not a fix!
32 posted on 01/15/2016 7:57:09 AM PST by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW! evil ignorant stupid or crazy-doesn't matter!)
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To: mountn man

Wasn’t it some kind of wacky virus?


33 posted on 01/15/2016 8:07:56 AM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: reaganaut1; Jim Robinson

I may be totally wrong here, but I am wondering if Jim has tried using a regular closing on the charset meta tag instead of the XHTML version. In other words, instead of the closing tag looking like this /> just using > without the slash?

It might be worth a try.

Please forgive me, Jim, if I am beating a dead horse here.


34 posted on 01/15/2016 8:11:53 AM PST by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie)
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To: Menehune56

“few weeks ago...”??? This has been going on for months.


35 posted on 01/15/2016 8:14:19 AM PST by TruthWillWin (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money.)
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To: reaganaut1

I use this before posting articles:

http://dan.hersam.com/tools/smart-quotes.html

Only takes a few seconds to copy and paste.


36 posted on 01/15/2016 8:20:37 AM PST by Charles Henrickson
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To: reaganaut1

Well, that’s the same site I linked. GMTA.


37 posted on 01/15/2016 8:21:24 AM PST by Charles Henrickson
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To: DUMBGRUNT
I won't point any fingers, but it should be noted that, birds of a feather flock together.

CAAAWW CAAAWW

38 posted on 01/15/2016 8:34:40 AM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life, Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: Scutter

I’m not a Windows basher, I noticed the problem blow up when Windows 10 rolled out. That’s all. Not saying I’m right.


39 posted on 01/15/2016 8:49:23 AM PST by dynoman (Objectivity is the essence of intelligence. - Marylin vos Savant)
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To: reaganaut1; Jim Robinson
I am sick of fixing each individual wrong character when I copy a poster's statement at the top to show what I am answering, or copy and post part of an article, and tired of fixing every possessive that requires a ‘, such as “candidate's” and every contraction of a word I write, such as “won't”.

As of right now, I am going to start leave off the quotes “ and contractions ‘. It takes a long time to “fix” the symbol problems in a long post.

When I went to university, besides getting a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology/Psychological Examining, I got a minor in English and Business Administration and it just irritates me to have mistakes in writing. However, until this symbol thing is fixed, I'm leaving off the symbols that screw up.

40 posted on 01/15/2016 9:09:48 AM PST by Marcella (CRUZ (Prepping can save your life today))
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