visual editor quote and en-dash symbol conversion creates unintended source markdown

[jjallaire]

Discussion here:

https://community.rstudio.com/t/how-to-disable-symbol-conversion-in-rstudio-visual-markdown-mode-to-prevent-damage-of-content/110725

[GegznaV]

I copy the original message here:

---

I use R Markdown editor in RStudio (1.4.1717). I created .Rmd file with contents like this:

The closing quote must not be changed „here“.

Interval -2–-1: the combination of – (en dash) and hyphen must not be changed into ---

After switching to Visual Markdown and back to regular markdown editor, the contents were changed into:

The closing quote must not be changed „here".

Interval -2---1: the combination of -- (en dash) and hyphen must not be changed into ---

The same happens when I save the Rmd file in the Visual Markdown editor.

• Here „ was changed into ". In English, it would be OK, but in my language, these are two different symbols. The text got distorted in an unwanted way.
• Next, interval "from minus two to minus one" was converted into "from minus two to (plus) one". This changed the meaning of the content.

Sometimes I copy-paste pieces of text into R Markdown file, sometimes I want to use Visual mode on old Rmd files in which non-Englis language is used. If these conversions happen and the user does not notice them on time, the damage can irreversible.

Question: How can these unwanted symbol conversions be reliably disabled in RStudio?

[jjallaire]

With this commit (9ee2790), this can now be prevented by disabling the smart extension for the editor:

---
title: "My Document"
editor_options:
  markdown:
    extensions: -smart
---

[valerie-rstudio]

Verified Fixed

RStudio Edition : Server
RStudio Version : 2021.12.0-daily+80
OS Version      : ubuntu20
R Version       : 4.0.3

Verified that the unwanted symbol conversions are now prevented by disabling the smart extension for the editor.

[GegznaV]

1. Can this behavior be set as the default in RStudio? (I mean, the default for a user and/or for a project).
2. Is it documented? If yes, please, add the link to this thread.

[GegznaV]

And how this be controlled in, e.g., bookdown projects, where .Rmd files of chapters do not contain YAML header. Is it sufficient to set this option in any of the setup files. E.g., in index.Rmd?