Two Quote or Not Two Quote …

… that is the question!

I have known for some time that it is safer to copy and paste code from the web into Notepad or similar, before copying and pasting that into my own code. It is not only new line characters that can be different but also the double-quotes. I recently noticed this when I was writing my series on Visio ShapeSheet Functions A-Z because I make copious use of the EVALTEXT(…) function, so I investigated further and found that there are different double-quotes used when typing text into a Visio shape or typing into a Visio ShapeSheet cell!

I used the Immediate Window in the VB Editor to get the Ascii numbers for the three different double-quote characters:

The ShapeSheet formulas that I used with Insert / Field / Custom Formula on the three callouts associated with the ellipse shape containing “”” are:

="The first character of the target shape evaluates to : "&IFERROR(LEFT(SHAPETEXT(CALLOUTTARGETREF()!TheText),1),"#NA")

="The second character of the target shape evaluates to : "&IFERROR(MID(SHAPETEXT(CALLOUTTARGETREF()!TheText),2,1),"#NA")

="The last character of the target shape evaluates to : "&IFERROR(RIGHT(SHAPETEXT(CALLOUTTARGETREF()!TheText),1),"#NA")

I discussed these findings with fellow Visio MVP, John Goldsmith, who pointed out that Visio is using a Word feature to auto-format as you type, and this can be unticked in Visio Options / Proofing / AutoFormat As You Type / Replace as you type / “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes”.

This does work, or, alternatively, you can hit CTRL-Z immediately after typing a double-quote character because the straight quote is inserted first, and then followed by the AutoFormat replacing it with a smart quote.

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