Beta 7: Notes with annotations exported to HTML contain curly/smart quotes

When notes are exported to HTML, annotations have a HTML <blockquote> tag plus curly/smart quotes. That is, the annotation begins <blockquote><p style="margin-left: 30px;">“ and ends with ”</p></blockquote>. This does not happen when notes are exported as markdown or when the note is inserted into a Word document using "Insert note" from the ribbon/toolbar.

My preference is to remove the curly quotes because many of my annotations are edited to include summary information that I still want to be treated as a direct quote because it is not my work. In this case the curly quotes appear in only part of the annotation. Also, the text is already using <blockquote> and any adornments or changes can be done with CSS or editing HTML tags.
  • Did you create a custom note template?

    Can you provide a Debug ID for reproducing this?
  • Debug ID: D2138017188

    I removed the custom note template (extensions.zotero.note.css) and disabled all add-ins/plug-ins before exporting the note as HTML. Same results as explained above.

    I have customised annotation highlights (extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.highlight).
  • edited May 2, 2024
    No, a custom note template is what you're using (hence noteTemplates in the pref name). You'll need to reset that back to the default. The note.css pref has nothing to do with this.

    You wouldn't get the above output with the blockquote example given in the documentation. As you can see on that page, there's specific behavior to avoid curly quotes in blockquotes. (But there's also no <p>, so I'm not sure how you got that.)
  • I think it is probably happening because of a combination of two things: (1) I have been editing the highlighted text after it is added to a note, to make more succinct or to join two different highlights together, and (2) customising noteTemplates. I was sure I followed the documentation you linked to but then again...

    Changing noteTemplates.highlight so that curly quotes are explicitly not wanted (that is, <blockquote>{{highlight quotes='false'}} {{citation}}.</blockquote>) seems to work but I would need to test a bit more.

    Many thanks for your help.
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