[texhax] use of " in LaTeX

[Nikolas Arend]

Nikolas Arend wrote:
> bill purvis wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>> I'm trying to produce a document which includes various measurements in inches
>> for which the generally accepted notation is ". However, my editor kindly 
>> replaces this with `` or '' depending on context, which produces the 
>> quotation marks in the output. By judicious fiddling I can get the " into
>> my .tex file, but it still ends up as quotation marks which don't look
>> right on measurements. I've looked in most places but none of them seem
>> to tackle this problem. Can anyone give me a recipe?
>>
>> Bill
>>   
>>     
> Many editors make such kind of replacements by default when in Latex 
> mode to get the quotation marks right. If you don't like that, you 
> should have a look at the editor preferences and turn that feature off.
> For the inch sign, try putting two single " ' " (not a ") in a math 
> environment, like $''$, which probably produces the result you want. The 
> " can have a special meaning in Latex, e.g. to print German Umlaute when 
> german.sty is used ("a, "o) or actually to produce proper quotation 
> marks ("` and "').
>
> HTH,    Nick.
>
>   
I forgot... there's also the \prime command, which you could use like 
$123^{\prime\prime}$ or define a new command such as

\newcommand{\inchsign}{^{\prime\prime}}   and use it like $123\inchsign$ 

to spare a bit of typing.

Best,  Nick.