On Wed, January 25, 2012 6:08 pm, David Starner wrote: [snip]
there's always some cost in going the extra step, and I think there's a valid question here about whether it's worth it.
Yes, that is a valid question. Not that many years ago I felt that curly quotes in a document was a silly affectation. Over time that view has moderated, and I now prefer reading curly quotes, so long as I can pick a font that does them fairly well (I can't even imagine using a device or software that doesn't let me select the font and install new ones). I've finally twisted Abbyy's arm far enough that it will preserve curly quotes, and I'm working on a system using Hunspell that will do a spell check on documents that contain them. So far, I think the cost/benefit ratio /for me/ favors preserving (or even creating) curly quotes, but I can definitely appreciate it if others make a different calculation.