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Block Quotations & Quotes

Unlike an inline (or in-text) quotations, which are integrated into the text, a block quotation is a longer quotation, usually from another source, set off from surrounding text by paragraph breaks.

These should be tagged using the Quote style.

Quote style can only exist on its own. It can not be combined with other styles. This also means it can not be inline with Normal style (i.e. at then end of a sentence, or part of a Normal Styled paragraph). Sometimes the use of emphasis will be better, or even no styling if the meaning can be understood by reading the text. If in doubt, ask!

Block quotations are commonly seen as quotations in epigraphs, books reviews or endorsements, and as long quotations taken from other sources within the body of the text. This style can also be used for quoting a poem, song, or letter. If in doubt, ask!

Block quotations may have an attribution associated with the quotation, which should be marked using the custom Citation style. See Author and Citation Style for more information.

Text-to-speech software will usually declare Quote and End Quote before and after reading text marked up as block quotations.

If there are multiple quotations in a row, like in a book reviews or endorsements section, it is important to select and apply the Quote style to each quote separately.

This will make sure each quote is marked up separately, and not as one long single quotation.

Make sure that the citation and quote style are separate. If the citation/author is on the same line as the quote, separate it by a single paragraph break and then apply the styles. This will ensure there is no doubling of styles and will avoid any issues in conversion to EPUB3. Here is a link to a tutorial showing you how to do this.

If you have any questions, check the archive below, if still not clear, post your question on the Production Q&A

Q&A Archive

Q: I have a question about French dialogue for the book Société des grands fonds. For French dialogue, they often forego quotation marks and instead use em dashes at the beginning of each line of dialogue, which make it look more like a list. Here's an example from chapter 10 of this book:

— Un hot dog patate, ça fait longtemps que j’ai pas mangé ça…

— Pourquoi tu penses à ça ?

— Ben, t’es venu ben loin pour manger un hot dog.

Am I okay to leave it as is?

A: Yes. We only reformat, and this would be an edit. We aim to keep the reformatted book as close to the original as possible.


Q: Question regarding formatting quotes. In the Hanging of Angelique there are a number of block quotes taken from newspapers and journals. In the etext some of the quotes have the date formatted to be a part of the block quote, whereas others appear to have the date formatted in a way that appears it is intended to be outside of the block quote. Just to clarify, should I apply the quote style to all of the dates so they are consistent? Or apply the quote style only to the dates that appear to be a part of the block quote?

A: Great question. In this case, it is best to be consistent.


Q: I have a question about italics in quotes. In the book I'm working on, the author has compiled an extensive list of quotes from other sources but then gone in and added italics to many sections of the quotes. Sometimes just a few words at a time but other times, entire sentences and even paragraphs are italicized. Almost always, the endnote for the quote then includes the phrase "emphasis added". From a print disability point of view, many of those italics are unnecessary and present a barrier to readability. But I hesitate to change the author's intention of highlighting parts of the quote, especially since they've typed "emphasis added" in the endnote. Are the rules about when to apply emphasis style and when not to different in this situation? If I do remove the italics, do I also delete the "emphasis added" from the endnote?

A: Good Question. In cases like these emphasis can be tricky. If the author wrote "emphasis added" we can keep it, unless it is a large block of text such as an entire paragraph. Do not delete anything written in the book, I realize it is not perfect but we are not editors, just reformatting for accessibility.


Q: The book I am working on a book has a number of block quotes, and some of these quotes are centred while others are more left aligned. Should we use two different styles for the quotes?

A: For any block quotations, just use the standard Quote style

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