Global Moxie

Skip Navigation
Help!

Or search support forum

Skip Navigation

What's Global Moxie?

Global Moxie is the hypertext laboratory of Josh Clark, a writer, programmer and designer whose projects include the Big Medium web content management system. Josh spins words and code from his multimedia studio in Paris, France.

What's Big Medium?

Big Medium is flexible, easy-to-use server software for creating and editing websites directly from your browser. Check out the features or download now.

On Shelves

iWork ’09: The Missing Manual

iWork ’09: The Missing Manual is my fun and comprehensive book about Apple’s remarkable word processor, presentation software, and spreadsheet program.
Order yours now.

Moxiemail

Enter your e-mail to receive occasional updates:

News feeds
Home > Help! > Big Medium FAQ > Page Display

How do I make Big Medium generate “curly quotes” and other typographic finery?

E-mail this page Print this page

Question

How do I make Big Medium generate “curly quotes” and other typographic finery?

Answer

Use the SmartyPants plugin for Big Medium.

About SmartyPants

SmartyPants is a Perl plugin written by the oh-so-clever John Gruber. Originally designed for use with Movable Type, Blosxom, and BBEdit, I've tweaked it to work with Big Medium, too.

When installed, the SmartyPants plugin for Big Medium adds the following transformations to your page content:

  • Straight quotes ( " and ' ) into “curly” quote HTML entities
  • Dashes (“--” and “---”) into en- and em-dash entities
  • Three consecutive dots (“...”) into an ellipsis entity

(Sorry, for now at least, the plugin does not transform the text of page/link titles, only to the body text of pages.)

To Install

Download the SmartyPants plugin for Big Medium.

SmartyPants for Big Medium 1.0 (8 KB)
Download the SmartyPants plugin (requires Big Medium 2.0b27 or later).

Unzip the download file to get SmartyPants.pl file. Upload this file to the plugins directory inside your site's moxiebin directory, making sure that your FTP client is set to "plain text" (or "ASCII") mode.

Rebuild all pages to make Big Medium update the text of all of your current pages, and you're done.

More from this section

Home > Help! > Big Medium FAQ > Page Display
Why don't accented characters display correctly?
How to resolve encoding conflicts between your server and Big Medium.
Why are some widgets not showing up on my pages?
What to do if your announcements, tips or some link widgets are not making it into your pages.
How do I make Big Medium generate “curly quotes” and other typographic finery?
Use the SmartyPants plugin for Big Medium.
How do I password-protect sites managed by Big Medium?
Keeping your site (or portions of it) private.
Why are the images in my custom templates broken on some pages?
Troubleshoot broken images in your templates.
Why do Flash animations obscure parts of my page?
Tips for fixing flash movies that "float" above other page elements, including dropdown menus and enlarged/slideshow images.
Can I split articles into multiple pages?
Yes, download the custom plugin that enables this feature in Big Medium.
Can I add additional data fields to my Big Medium pages?
This tutorial walks you through the creation of a custom plugin to add additional data fields to Big Medium.
How do I block the display of “one-click editing” links?
Why are edit links displayed on all public pages, even after I click “hide edit links” on the edit strip?

Blog

The Future in Your Pocket, and Why I'm Writing Another Book
iWork ’09 Tips, Interviews, and Book Reviews
Marathons, Makers, and Surviving the Dark Middle
Message from Beyond
David Byrne Never Stops Making Sense
My Latest Project: A Book

Project News

iWork ’09: The Missing Manual Now on Bookshelves
iWork ’09: The Missing Manual Available for Preorder
Big Medium Book: Now in Paperback
Big Medium 2.0.8
Big Medium 2.0.6
Big Medium 2.0.5
Download Big Medium
Try it free for 30 days, or buy to unlock.

Superhero Software

"Dude, you're superman. By far the best product and best company I've ever dealt with hands down."
—Dave Cedrone

"Your system is so easy to run and modify. We're going to go live a week early, which never happens in this business."
—Mike McGann

"Man do I love this script. My entire site is now all Big Medium top-to-bottom. I have used many, many scripts in my time... This one has me hooked and is the best I have ever used for a news site. Josh, you're the man."
—Don McPartland

More praise for Big Medium