Why does the typography of a text look wrong?
Understand why typography can look inconsistent when spaces, quotation marks, dashes, punctuation and copied characters come from different sources.
A text can be correctly spelled and still look visually wrong. Mixed quotation marks, different kinds of spaces, inconsistent dashes or imported characters are common reasons.
Before correcting them, distinguish a language convention from a copy-paste artefact or a real punctuation problem.
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Conventions vary by language and medium
Spacing, quotation marks and capitalisation are not identical across languages. Web editors and document software may also handle special characters differently. A focused review is usually more useful than rereading everything when the operation only changes one specific part of the text.
Copying introduces mixed characters
Text assembled from several sources can contain straight and curly apostrophes, multiple space characters and several dash forms even when they look similar on screen. Keep the original nearby whenever the change could alter how a passage is read or how several elements relate to one another.
Punctuation and typography are different layers
A misplaced comma can change sentence structure, while spacing around it is usually a typographic convention. Stabilise meaning before normalising presentation. Review the affected passage in its real context so the change still fits the rest of the text rather than looking correct in isolation.
Look for inconsistency rather than abstract perfection
A document can follow a particular house style successfully if comparable cases are treated consistently. Unintentional mixing is usually the real problem. Review the affected passage in its real context so the change still fits the rest of the text rather than looking correct in isolation.
Use automation as a normalisation aid
Automatic rules can handle repetitive patterns quickly, but quotes, names, URLs, code and passages in another language still need checking. Check names, numbers and technical strings separately. If the content contains names, numbers or technical strings, check those separately before keeping the resulting version.
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