Replace normal double quote with Latex double quote

By default Latex formats " as an end quote. If you have a  document with sentences which start with ", the formatted document can look awkward with sentences starting with end quotes.

To replace them with `` so that Latex formats them as opening quotes, you can use sed. Save the following code in a text file:

# This is for lines which start with double quotes, but do not end with them
s/^"\([^"][^"]*$\)/``\1/g

# This is for sentences which both start and end with double quotes
s/"\([^"]*"\)/``\1/g

 
Save the file as dblQtReplacer. Now run your Latex file through sed:

sed -f dblQtReplacer latex_file.tex > new_latex_file.tex