Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 5018
autocorrect failures: em dash and smart quotes
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:38:26 UTC
for some reason the autocorrect of two consecutive hyphens to an em dash only takes place if you type a space, a word and then another space after the hyphens. It should take place after the first space is typed. secondly, if an ordinary double quote has been autocorrected to a smart quote, and this is followed by a punctuation mark such as a full stop, the spell checker thinks this is a mistake. It isn't, always or even often. third, and related, if the punctuation mark comes before the smart quote, then the autocorrect does not, as it should, recognise the next word as the start of a sentence, which needs to be capitalised. so if I write a paragraph of text that ends in reported speech, and is followed by another paragraph, the first sentence of the new paragraph is not autmatically capped up.
Further problems with autocorrect. no space is printed after autocorrected em- dashes, though one is shown on screen. if the replacement text has formatting, such as italics, it will not show up at all in the dialogue box where text replacements are set, even though it works properly in the program. Note that in distinction to em dash replacement, autocorrecting from the dialog box works directly after the first space bar is hit: there need be no intervening word or letter.
workaround for the em dash autocorrect: uncheck the box in "Autocorrect while you type". Enter the em dash as an autocorrect for two hyphens in the normal autocorrect box. this is notably slower to run the first time; but works without fuss after that, doing the replacement as soon as the space bar is hit.
Target to OOo 2.0
Reassigned to Bettina.
This issue is considered for OO.o later.
reassigning & adding keywords according to new RFE process - Sophie
I tried the workaround proposed by andrewb, and it does not seem to work in OOo 2.0.2 on WinXP.
*** Issue 74068 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
SBA: I found a nice pile of dash AutoCorrect issues (see list below). In my opinion, all these should be consolidated (set as duplicate to this one). the problem is not exactly new: As OS stated in (closed) issue 5838...: "The AutoCorrection replaces the dash only when it's included in characters, numbers and brackets. It has to be determined which other characters should be allowed or not." Note that this enhancement needs a specification. This is the current list of related issues (duplicate candidates) I have found: issue 13531: dashes and hyphens - report based on 1.1beta (os) issue 23156: Dashes following a quote are not converted to em-dash (os) issue 35596: Better handling of m-dash and n-dash (bh) issue 49806: Two hyphens together not changed to an em dash when followed by a quotation mark (fme) issue 53416: en/em dash autocorrect fails when preceeded by a field (i.e.footnote) (os) issue 56499: en-dash and em-dash replacement (issues@lingucomponent)
*** Issue 13531 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 23156 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 35596 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 49806 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 53416 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 56499 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
SBA: Concerning "other ways to get dashes", see enhancement issue 73113.
As said andrewb, maybe simply adding -- -> – and --- -> $mdash; in the autocorrection words list could ease the way to insert those characters into a document.
It's been eight years... And this is still not fixed. It can become quite time-consuming and annoying to have to use spaces to create an em-dash, then go back and delete the spaces, just to get an em-dash to fit in before closing quote-marks. This is the most common application of the em-dash in most writing. It should be expected to work at this stage of development. Please, someone work this into somewhat of a priority for the next release. It's very, very long overdue for such a basic and necessary function.
How is an em dash before closing quotes "... the most common application ..." in writing? I know of no occasion when this would be so. If one is attempting to show that a citation is only a part of the entire passage, then the ellipsis (...) should be used. The only real use of an em dash is to indicate a parenthetical explanation or comment, or to indicate a long pause. Since the normal (and correct) usage (in English at least) is between two words in the middle of a sentence, and since it works fine in that situation, IMO the current target seems fine. It would appear that those having this problem are actually misusing the em dash.
In reply to settantta: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Dash-in-an-English-Sentence Scroll down to use number 5. Example: "Don't you think this looks wonderf--" "GET DOWN!!!" Interrupted speech happens a LOT in writing for effect in a story, or with characters who interrupt a lot as a trait. That is not a misuse. Stories necessitate this method of punctuation quite often. Thus, the issue should be fixed.