1

I copied some code from a web page and into my text editor.

The double quote characters changed to this:

<iframe src=“http://www.yahoo.com” style=“width:500px; height:500px;” frameborder=“0?></iframe>

instead of this (which is what I needed):

<iframe src="http://www.yahoo.com" style="width:500px; height:500px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Why?

Improve this question
2
  • What editor are you using?
    – Joshua Nurczyk
    Sep 29, 2009 at 20:12
  • I'm using Netbeans.
    – Karl
    Sep 29, 2009 at 22:15

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

Some editors don't handle "smart quotes" well or forcibly convert them to "dumb quotes".

EDIT: I read your examples backwards - the opposite happened: you got so-called "smart" quotes from plain ones. In some editors, that's a configurable setting. And understand that word processors are very different from ordinary text editors. Using Word as a text editor can do strange and damaging things to code or markup languages.

Improve this answer
5
  • 1
    yup, change your editor :) +1
    – Molly7244
    Sep 29, 2009 at 18:49
  • 2
    I think he's saying that it converted "dumb" quotes to "smart" quotes. Which would imply that he's using a word processor of some nature, and not a text editor.
    – wfaulk
    Sep 29, 2009 at 19:08
  • @wfaulk - yah, you're right.
    – DaveE
    Sep 29, 2009 at 19:11
  • No, I'm not using a word processor - I'm using Netbeans, which is a programming IDE.
    – Karl
    Sep 29, 2009 at 22:16
  • I don't have NetBeans installed here, but a little googling found this: Tools -> Options -> Editing -> Editor Settings -> Java Editor -> Pair Character Completion. I'm not sure if the setting can be applied to the editor generally or is language-specific.
    – DaveE
    Oct 1, 2009 at 20:07
1

You need a text editor that's HTML aware e.g. Notepad++. Either that or something 'dumber' than the editor you're using (like Notepad) which won't attempt to 'smart-quote' your code.

Improve this answer
1
  • Actually, any real text editor would do better than that, HTML-aware or not.
    – David Thornley
    Sep 29, 2009 at 21:28
0

Most likely the software is trying to be helpful. If, when you type a quote, it becomes a “ character, wouldn't you want it to do the same conversion when pasting in text?

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .