Applescripts don't work on cells that start with non-alphanumeric

Automation OmniOutliner Automation
#1

This script works (append cell2 to cell3) but skips cells when the text starts with a quote, or question mark, or hyphen, etc. What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

tell application “OmniOutliner”
tell front document
set rowCount to count of rows
set allRows to a reference to selected rows (* set allRows to a reference to selected rows )
repeat with currentRow in allRows ( )
( set currentNote to note of currentRow )
if (value of cell 2 of currentRow) > 0 then
set cell2Value to value of cell 2 of currentRow
( display dialog cell2Value )
set cell3Value to value of cell 3 of currentRow
set text of cell 3 of first selected row to cell3Value & ": " & cell2Value ( append left cell to this cell *)
end if
end repeat
end tell
end tell

#2

Are the problem characters > 0? If not (and a double quote isn’t) then it won’t meet the conditions of this row:

if (value of cell 2 of currentRow) > 0 then

You’ll have to find a more useful comparison than zero if your text has punctuation in it.

#3

Thanks for pointer! This comparison does what I want, i.e., move over the strings:

if (count of text of cell 2 of currentRow) > 0 then

instead of this one, which doesn’t work on strings that start with a non-letter:

if (value of cell 2 of currentRow) > 0 then

#4

I was thinking of just using an empty pair of quotes, e.g. > “” but your idea looks good.