13

I have a quotation which extends for multiple paragraphs. The literary convention is that there is no end-quote at the end of each paragraph, except for the last one.

However, this seems to be incompatible with the package csquotes (which I am using so that I don't have to convert every instance of "..." in my copy-pasted Word document into LaTeX quotation marks).

The following code causes 2 errors, and makes every subsequent quotation mark the wrong orientation...

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\MakeOuterQuote{"}
\begin{document}

"This is a quotation," he said.  "It continues onto the next paragraph.

"Here is the continuation of my quote.  As per literary convention,
there is no end-quote at the end of the previous paragraph."

\end{document}

csquotes error

lockstep
  • 250,273
jamaicanworm
  • 29,114
  • What happens with block quotes - as recommended by this wikipedia citation: "In most cases, quotations that span multiple paragraphs should be set as block quotations, and thus do not require quotation marks. Quotation marks are used for multiple-paragraph quotations in some cases, especially in narratives. The convention in English is to give opening quotation marks to the first and each subsequent paragraph, using closing quotation marks only for the final paragraph of the quotation, as in the following example from Pride and Prejudice:..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark – Ethan Bolker Apr 26 '12 at 17:06
  • @EthanBolker In my case, this is for a fiction narrative, so block quotes would not seem appropriate. – jamaicanworm Apr 26 '12 at 17:27

2 Answers2

9

Instead of having unbalanced quotes, you could use csquotess possibility to configure a "middle quote". Interestingly, this is pre-configured for french "guillemets" style, but not for american.

The following example, derived from the original setting for american language, seems to do what you want.

Adapt to your own taste.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\DeclareQuoteStyle[american]{english}% verified
  {\textquotedblleft}
  [\textquotedblleft]
  {\textquotedblright}
  [0.05em]
  {\textquoteleft}
  {\textquoteright}
\MakeOuterQuote{"}
\begin{document}

"This is a quotation," he said.  "It continues onto the next paragraph.

Here is the continuation of my quote.  As per literary convention,
there is no end-quote at the end of the previous paragraph."

\end{document}

quotes example

Stephan Lehmke
  • 24,361
  • @jamaicanworm Did you try my example? For me it does, because the "middle quote" is automatically inserted at the beginning of a paragraph. See the image. – Stephan Lehmke Apr 26 '12 at 17:34
  • Thanks. But I don't want to automatically insert quotation marks to the beginning of every paragraph in my whole document... – jamaicanworm Apr 26 '12 at 17:35
  • Well of course it will only be inserted inside of a quoted text... – Stephan Lehmke Apr 26 '12 at 17:37
  • Is there any way to have it us double-quotes " instead of single-quotes '? – jamaicanworm Apr 26 '12 at 17:40
  • @jamaicanworm My example was derived from british quoting style. See my edit for american style. – Stephan Lehmke Apr 26 '12 at 17:49
  • @jamaicanworm It's important to note here that Stephan Lehmke's example does not have an opening " at the beginning of the second paragraph. If your text includes this "middle "", then you will get an unbalanced groups error from csquotes. – Henry DeYoung Jul 23 '12 at 20:36
4

From the csquotes documentation:

enter image description here

As you see, unbalanced groups will always trigger an error.

Gonzalo Medina
  • 505,128
  • I pasted OPs code into my editor (emacs), which automatically converted all the " characters to `` or '' as appropriate. When I commented out the \MakeOuterQuote the document compiled to correct output in spite of the unbalanced active quotes. – Ethan Bolker Apr 26 '12 at 17:04
  • @GonzaloMedina So is there any way around this problem? Can I have a quotation spanning multiple paragraphs, without triggering this error? – jamaicanworm Apr 26 '12 at 17:29