Bug 170428 - No space between quotation marks French (Switzerland) fr-CH
Summary: No space between quotation marks French (Switzerland) fr-CH
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Localization (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.3.4.2 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) All
: medium normal
Assignee: Heiko Tietze
URL:
Whiteboard: target:26.8.0
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: AutoCorrect-Complete
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Reported: 2026-01-22 02:45 UTC by Meeaad
Modified: 2026-01-27 17:21 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Meeaad 2026-01-22 02:45:08 UTC
Hello,

I would like to report an issue with AutoCorrect for **French (Switzerland)** in LibreOffice Writer.

Even when:

* the document language is set to *French (Switzerland)*,
* AutoCorrect → Localized Options → “Add non-breaking space before specific punctuation marks” is enabled,
* and the quotes « » are typed manually in a new document,

LibreOffice does **not** insert the expected (narrow) non-breaking spaces inside French quotation marks.

The same setup works immediately when switching the document language to **French (France)**.

This suggests that AutoCorrect punctuation spacing rules for **fr-CH** are incomplete or not applied.

LibreOffice version: [please fill in]
Operating system: [please fill in]

Thank you for your work on LibreOffice.
Kind regards,
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2026-01-22 13:07:39 UTC
Intentional since 6.4.0 and at 6.3.4 release, no spaces as are published norms of fr-CH punctuation and quotation style to match in all four Swiss national languages. [1]

See discussions in bug 127961 c#10 and commit specifically excluding fr-CH in https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/80909

Though some discussion of using NNBSP (U+202F) applied for those fr locales where applied rather than NBSP (U+00A0) as in bug 165038. Possibly as an option.

=-ref-=
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#French
Comment 2 V Stuart Foote 2026-01-22 13:42:46 UTC
And here is a recent Google AI overview for the query "what is the national standard in switzerland for digital content with guillemets and spaces"

AI Overview
The national standard in Switzerland for digital content using guillemets (« ») is to place them pointing outwards («text») without spaces between the quotation marks and the quoted text. This applies to both Swiss Standard German and French texts, differing from the spacing used in France. 

Key Rules for Swiss Digital Content:
Symbol Orientation: Guillemets always point outwards: « opening and » closing.
Spacing: No spaces are placed between the guillemets and the quoted text (e.g., «Text»), which differs from the thin-space requirement in France.

Official Usage: The Swiss Federal Chancellery dictates the use of « » for official documents, rather than German-style „ “ or » «.

Nested Quotes: For quotes within quotes, single guillemets (‹ ›) are used, also typically without spaces.

German Specifics: In Swiss German, the letter ß is omitted in favor of ss. 

While some print media may use very small spaces, the standard for digital, web, and official typography in Switzerland is tight, with no, or almost no, space separating the guillemets from the text.
Comment 3 Meeaad 2026-01-23 22:25:14 UTC
The AI is unfortunately wrong : 

https://www.kumocorp.ch/typo in the "guillemets" part says that they must be a space between quotation marks and it's based on the normative book "Guide du typographe" which is also used as a reference in the website of the Canton (State) of Vaud : 

https://www.vd.ch/cha/bic/usages-typographiques

https://www.vd.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/typo3_canton_vaud/fichiers_pdf/charte-redactionnelle-etat.pdf

So, in French Switzerland there's officially spaces between quotation marks and also before question mark and exclamation mark except if they're followed by each other (like in French).

Thank you for your fast answer. Hope the next update will correct this behaviour.

Best regards
Comment 4 V Stuart Foote 2026-01-24 12:30:12 UTC
Maybe, but not convincing. Seems fine as implemented by Eike for bug 127961--omitting full NBSP spaces fr-CH locales (svxacorr.cxx for LANGUAGE_FRENCH_SWISS).

But should enough fr-CH users actually request, it would be possible for the autocorrection to insert a NNBSP (U+202F) with the Guillemets, just not the full NBSP (U+00A0) that seems stylistically objectionable.

Over to UX-advise for an opinion,  => WF or maybe implement a NNBSP for fr-CH?
Comment 5 Eike Rathke (retired, only occasionally showing up) 2026-01-24 16:11:41 UTC
Rereading the sources given in https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=127961#c10
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anf%C3%BChrungszeichen#Schweiz,_Liechtenstein,_Frankreich
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillemet#En_Suisse,_au_Liechtenstein_et_en_Norv%C3%A8ge
now also mention a narrow space (espace fine)(mit deutlich geringerem Weißraum zwischen den Zeichen und dem von ihnen eingeschlossenen Text; mais sans espace ou avec une espace fine) for fr-CH, so that seems to be state of the art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Summary_table
still explicitly lists the exemption without spaces.

I suggest to implement NNBSP with guillemets for all *-CH languages.
Comment 6 Meeaad 2026-01-25 22:06:13 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #4)
> Maybe, but not convincing. Seems fine as implemented by Eike for bug
> 127961--omitting full NBSP spaces fr-CH locales (svxacorr.cxx for
> LANGUAGE_FRENCH_SWISS).
> 
> But should enough fr-CH users actually request, it would be possible for the
> autocorrection to insert a NNBSP (U+202F) with the Guillemets, just not the
> full NBSP (U+00A0) that seems stylistically objectionable.
> 
> Over to UX-advise for an opinion,  => WF or maybe implement a NNBSP for
> fr-CH?

Sorry, I meant the NNBSP like in french (France). What I said is the official norm from the State and from academic perspective (although its non-compliance is often not sanctioned by teachers, it's still the official norm from the typographic reference book in French Switzerland).
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2026-01-26 08:13:13 UTC
(In reply to Eike Rathke (retired, only occasionally showing up) from comment #5)
> I suggest to implement NNBSP with guillemets for all *-CH languages.

Then let's do it.
Comment 8 Commit Notification 2026-01-26 14:09:53 UTC
Heiko Tietze committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/ed0c84dcc737e8546ae683e6af955f30f08e7681

Resolves tdf#170428 - Add NBSP at quotation for fr-ch

It will be available in 26.8.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 9 V Stuart Foote 2026-01-26 18:13:28 UTC
(In reply to Commit Notification from comment #8)
> Heiko Tietze committed a patch related to this issue.
> It has been pushed to "master":
> 
> https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/
> ed0c84dcc737e8546ae683e6af955f30f08e7681
> 
> Resolves tdf#170428 - Add NBSP at quotation for fr-ch
> 
> It will be available in 26.8.0.
> 
> The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
> https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
> information about daily builds can be found at:
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds
> 
> Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.

Umm, @Heiko. Don't think that is what was asked for. A full NBSP in fr-CH is kind of discouraged, and the suggestion is no space (as had existed for just fr-CH) or to provide a NNBSP with guillemets for the double quotation autocorrect for all languages of the Swiss locales fr-CH, de-CH, it-CH and rm-CH.  

Looks to need some additional logic to test all the Swiss languages and apply outward facing guillemets with a NNBSP (and maybe option for none should user prefer).
Comment 10 Meeaad 2026-01-26 20:01:59 UTC
After a little research I get these results :

NNBSP only applies to fr-CH for the quotation marks.

Not in it-CH or de-CH and there's no information on rm-CH which is a dialect spoken by only 30'000 people. 

So the modification should only apply to fr-CH
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2026-01-27 07:31:56 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #9)
> Umm, @Heiko. Don't think that is what was asked for. A full NBSP in fr-CH is
> kind of discouraged, and the suggestion is no space (as had existed for just
> fr-CH) or to provide a NNBSP with guillemets for the double quotation...
My patch just reverts a previous change by Eike. I preoccupiedly wrote in the summary NBSP not thinking about the actual character - which I did not change. Looking into the file it appears to be C2A0 in hexadecimal.

In a nutshell: if the result uses the wrong spacing character please file another ticket.

(In reply to Meeaad from comment #10)
> So the modification should only apply to fr-CH
That's exactly what the patch is supposed to do. I just removed two exclusions for fr-CH. You may test with a nightly build.
Comment 12 Eike Rathke (retired, only occasionally showing up) 2026-01-27 17:21:53 UTC
(In reply to Meeaad from comment #10)
> NNBSP only applies to fr-CH for the quotation marks.
> 
> Not in it-CH or de-CH and there's no information on rm-CH which is a dialect
> spoken by only 30'000 people. 
> 
> So the modification should only apply to fr-CH

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillemet#En_Suisse,_au_Liechtenstein_et_en_Norv%C3%A8ge clearly states "En Suisse (pour les quatre langues nationales)" so _for all four national languages_.

If there are actual normative resources it would be good to know them and not just Wikipedia or hearsay.