# Any Shakespeare site that auto-highlights different characters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332 "2013-03-19T04:41:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/1 "2013-03-19T04:41:52Z")
Anyone know of a site that will let you select a Shakespearean play, then a specific character in it, and then will print out the play with **that character’s lines highlighted?** Seems simple & useful enough but I can’t find one. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/2 "2013-03-19T09:49:36Z")
I don’t know any websites that do that, but it should be easy enough to just c&p the play into a word processor, and then highlight the character names using the Find function. ---
**Author:** ![geneb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@geneb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geneb)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/3 "2013-03-19T16:16:48Z")
I couldn’t find one, so I made one for you. [http://war-gib.com/character-sifter.aspx](http://war-gib.com/character-sifter.aspx) Enter the URL for the play you want from here: [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/) and enter the name of the character you want highlighted. Case doesn’t matter, but spelling does. Say you want all of Horatio’s lines highlighted from Hamlet. You will enter [Hamlet: Entire Play](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html) into the URL field and enter “Horatio” into the character name field. Just a note, this is hard on my server, so just use it for what you need and save or print the page rather than running it every time you need the play. Also, don’t try to break it. I only spent about 30 minutes making it so it isn’t the most stable piece of work I have ever made. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/4 "2013-03-20T03:32:21Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > I couldn’t find one, so I made one for you. I just want to say..this is the kind of reason I love SDMB. You deserve a free internet. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/5 "2013-03-21T05:50:16Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > I couldn’t find one, so I made one for you. > > [http://war-gib.com/character-sifter.aspx](http://war-gib.com/character-sifter.aspx) > > Enter the URL for the play you want from here: [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/) and enter the name of the character you want highlighted. Case doesn’t matter, but spelling does. > > Say you want all of Horatio’s lines highlighted from Hamlet. You will enter [Hamlet: Entire Play](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html) into the URL field and enter “Horatio” into the character name field. > > Just a note, this is hard on my server, so just use it for what you need and save or print the page rather than running it every time you need the play. Also, don’t try to break it. I only spent about 30 minutes making it so it isn’t the most stable piece of work I have ever made. Thanks, but no matter what I do I ultimately keep getting: 404 - File or directory not found. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/6 "2013-03-21T07:04:52Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > I couldn’t find one, so I made one for you. > > [http://war-gib.com/character-sifter.aspx](http://war-gib.com/character-sifter.aspx) > > Enter the URL for the play you want from here: [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/) and enter the name of the character you want highlighted. Case doesn’t matter, but spelling does. > > Say you want all of Horatio’s lines highlighted from Hamlet. You will enter [Hamlet: Entire Play](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html) into the URL field and enter “Horatio” into the character name field. > > Just a note, this is hard on my server, so just use it for what you need and save or print the page rather than running it every time you need the play. Also, don’t try to break it. I only spent about 30 minutes making it so it isn’t the most stable piece of work I have ever made. Spend a few hours on it and people will love you for it. Also, there is some program or maybe it is an app that does this with any play. I’ve known actors that have it. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/7 "2013-03-21T10:46:55Z")
I found this one the other day, which seems to do what you want - you can drill down into the play, then off to the right the list of characters. [http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org](http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org) Edit: oops, might have misunderstood. This gives you **only** the lines from that character, not the full play with their lines highlighted. ---
**Author:** ![Waxwinged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@Waxwinged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waxwinged)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/8 "2013-03-21T12:10:31Z")
Deleted ---
**Author:** ![geneb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@geneb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geneb)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/9 "2013-03-21T12:11:24Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Thanks, but no matter what I do I ultimately keep getting: > > 404 - File or directory not found. > > ☹ What gives you the 404, my site or the MIT site? I just tried again and both are working fine for me. (Are you clicking the link or typing it in the navigation bar?) If you get the 404 after inputting a URL and character name, it could be mistyped. I just gave an incorrect URL a try and got a 404. ---
**Author:** ![geneb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@geneb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geneb)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/10 "2013-03-21T12:22:39Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Spend a few hours on it and people will love you for it. > > Also, there is some program or maybe it is an app that does this with any play. I’ve known actors that have it. I’d be happy to put some more time in it to add additional functionality but I am not sure what other functionality an actor would need. I could pretty up the page and add error handling, but I don’t expect that it would get enough use to justify that. If there is a group of Shakespearean (and other public domain play) actors on the boards who would like to work with me to set up a site that would be beneficial to them then I would be up for it. The vast majority of the time to set such a thing up would be in converting all of the plays to a usable format (probably XML). The reason why I was able to make this site so quickly is because I am piggybacking off of MITs play list, which has consistent formatting on the plays. The downside of this is that there is a lot of string manipulation so it is painfully slow. I can foresee quite a lot of other issues with the way I am doing it as well, but nothing that should cause much trouble in the short term. (Except whatever is causing **Hail Ants’** 404. I didn’t foresee that.) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/11 "2013-03-21T12:53:59Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > I’d be happy to put some more time in it to add additional functionality but I am not sure what other functionality an actor would need. If you’re taking wish lists (and bear in mind that I know, literally, not a thing about programming, so this may be crazy talk)… I’d like to be able to highlight two or more characters in different colors. I’d like to be able to have a script with one characters lines complete and highlighted, and then the cue lines - the last sentence just before the highlighted line - present, but all the other not-my-character lines deleted. This is good for the first stage of rehearsing, when I don’t want to carry around a bulky script but I still need my cues and lines. > [@](#): > > ROMEO > He jests at scars that never felt a wound. > > JULIET appears above at a window > > … > That I might touch that cheek! > > JULIET > Ay me! > > ROMEO > … > And sails upon the bosom of the air. > > JULIET > O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? > Deny thy father and refuse thy name; > Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, > And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. > > ROMEO > [Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? > > JULIET > 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; > Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. > What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, > Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part > Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! > What’s in a name? that which we call a rose > By any other name would smell as sweet; > So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, > Retain that dear perfection which he owes > Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, > And for that name which is no part of thee > Take all myself. > > ROMEO > … > Henceforth I never will be Romeo. > > JULIET > What man art thou that thus bescreen’d in night > So stumblest on my counsel? > > ROMEO > … > Had I it written, I would tear the word. > > JULIET > My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words > Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound: > Art thou not Romeo and a Montague? > > ROMEO > Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike. > > JULIET > How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? It would be even groovier if I had another option for a deeply trimmed version with just cues and the first few words of my lines. It would be incredibly helpful for learning lines if I could test myself and just jog my memory without seeing the whole text unless I need it. > [@](#): > > ROMEO > He jests at scars that never felt a wound. > > JULIET appears above at a window > > That I might touch that cheek! > > JULIET > Ay me! > > ROMEO > And sails upon the bosom of the air. > > JULIET > O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? > > ROMEO > [Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? > > JULIET > 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; > > ROMEO > Henceforth I never will be Romeo. > > JULIET > What man art thou that thus bescreen’d in night > > ROMEO > Had I it written, I would tear the word. > > JULIET > My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words > > ROMEO > Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike. > > JULIET > How camest thou hither And if you could turn this into an app where I can see the “deep trim” and then, if I don’t remember the rest, I can touch it and it will expand into my full speech…well, then I think you’re into truly marketable, sellable territory. Add an annotation feature so I can easily put notes and reminders near certain lines (“beat” “use your right hand to hand him the flower” “slow down!”) that’d be, like, so awesome. And if the director could annotate his script with notes and send them to me and they’d insert in the right spot of my script… Oh, my god, I think I just wet my pants a little in excitement! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![geneb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@geneb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geneb)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/12 "2013-03-21T13:36:36Z")
I don’t have a smart phone or tablet, so there’s no way I could test this on it or develop for it, but I will look into adding that functionality to the web application in my free time (and try to keep it small and responsive so it can be used on pads and phones). I found Shakespeare plays in XML format so a lot of the work is already done. In the future it would be good if any play could be used so I will look into creating a transformation to allow users to use their own plays. Since my job doesn’t like me to work on other stuff on their time, it may take a little bit of time. Will post back when I have something worth looking at. (And I may be sending a PM for some clarification as some of that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.:)) ---
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/13 "2013-03-21T13:58:36Z")
Mind me, I’m just a simple Comp Sci AP student, but for the “first sentence” request, you could just trim the text by doing what you do now to find the actor name, but after each actor name you search for the first period and end the line there. IDK how you’d parse it with XML, but that’s my logic. The multiple characters shouldn’t be too bad. You just repeat the process for highlighting each character. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/14 "2013-03-21T22:03:19Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > What gives you the 404, my site or the MIT site? I just tried again and both are working fine for me. (Are you clicking the link or typing it in the navigation bar?) > > If you get the 404 after inputting a URL and character name, it could be mistyped. I just gave an incorrect URL a try and got a 404. Many, many thanks, I got it working! I was putting [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming\_shrew/\*\*index\*\*.html](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming_shrew/ **index**.html) into the URL box, I changed it to [http://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming\_shrew/\*\*full\*\*.html](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming_shrew/ **full**.html) and now it works like a charm! Thanks again! ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/15 "2013-03-22T05:25:59Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > I’d be happy to put some more time in it to add additional functionality but I am not sure what other functionality an actor would need. I could pretty up the page and add error handling, but I don’t expect that it would get enough use to justify that. > > If there is a group of Shakespearean (and other public domain play) actors on the boards who would like to work with me to set up a site that would be beneficial to them then I would be up for it. The vast majority of the time to set such a thing up would be in converting all of the plays to a usable format (probably XML). The reason why I was able to make this site so quickly is because I am piggybacking off of MITs play list, which has consistent formatting on the plays. The downside of this is that there is a lot of string manipulation so it is painfully slow. I can foresee quite a lot of other issues with the way I am doing it as well, but nothing that should cause much trouble in the short term. (Except whatever is causing **Hail Ants’** 404. I didn’t foresee that.) Ok, being able to highlight a role is good for an actor. Being able to edit the text would be good as well. Most productions of Shakespeare edit the plays a bit. So being able to do it like a word processor, or just being able to cross out sections of text. (if there could be something that talks them out of doing the play, that would be great for about 99% of all Shakespeare productions) ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-site-that-auto-highlights-different-characters/653332/16 "2013-03-25T05:04:25Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Ok, being able to highlight a role is good for an actor. Being able to edit the text would be good as well. Most productions of Shakespeare edit the plays a bit. So being able to do it like a word processor, or just being able to cross out sections of text. > > (if there could be something that talks them out of doing the play, that would be great for about 99% of all Shakespeare productions) If you could allow it to save the text in Microsoft Word format (.doc) i.e. so it preserves the highlighting (which saving as a .txt obviously won’t) that would go a long way. You’d have the highlighted text to edit & format as you like with most any word processor.