"Adding quotation marks"

[wellerpond]

Hello!

 

When I grade student papers I often like to quote some of their work as examples. I'd love a keyword where I can select the text, hit the keyword, and have quotation marks appear at the beginning and end of the selected text.

 

I haven't seen anything like this, but it seems like it must be possible. Any ideas?

 

Thank you!

 

David

[Stephen_C]

Yes, this is quite easy to accomplish. One way of doing so (there may be others) is to create the following workflow:

• Create a quotation mark variable (I put mine in the configuration but of course you can put it in the workflow somewhere).
• Start with a Universal Action acting on text.
• Save the selected text as a variable surrounded by the quotation mark variable, like this:

{var:quotationMark}{query}{var:quotationMark} (assuming the selectedText variable is passed in to that variable: if not, subsitute the selected text variable for {query})

 

You can then do what you wish with the quoted text. I have a workflow to send selected text by Message to friends and after that, in my workflow, it prompts for the source of the message and then sends to the selected friend quoting the text and source.

 

Stephen

[vitor]

Another approach: Add a Hotkey Trigger with Argument Selection in macOS and connect it to a Copy to Clipboard Output with Automatically paste to front most app ticked and in the box "{query}".

[wellerpond]

Thank you both; you just helped me build my very first successful workflow.

 

Baby steps.

[vitor]

Great! You can also check the Getting Started Guide for an interactive tutorial on making a workflow.