Word Tip--Turn off Curly Quotes

so i googled and this came up... it's five years old but there was a thread about what i was looking for...

Do you use curly or straight quotes? does it matter?

I use straight quotes because sometimes your text will end up in something which can't read curly quotes and your text ends up full of rubbish.

Curly f^cking quotes have no place in a decent manuscript. Or anything else, other than a letter or report intended to impress a herd of suits. Destroy them utterly. I have seen such hideous things pasted in forums, etc., etc., with question marks or other mysterious characters spattered through the text.

I'd turn off printers'/curly/"smart" quotes even if an editor or publication wants them because MS Word will insert them incorrectly in specific contexts. You can very easily learn to create them from the keyboard, and have complete control over them.

I'd also turn off the MS Word ellipses, since it's a special character in a special invisible MS font, and all the typographers will point and laugh if you use it. Just use spaced periods instead.

I didn't even think of how they won't always translate correctly!

Thanks.

Ben, another fun tip:
You can set word to auto-backup your work.

* If you use Microsoft Office Word 2007: Click the Microsoft Office Button, click Word Options in the lower-right corner, and then click Advanced. Scroll through the headings until you find the Save section, which is close to the end of the list. If the Always create backup copy setting, located in the Save section, is selected, Word created a backup copy of the document.
* If you use Microsoft Office Word 2003: On the Tools menu, click Options. The Always create backup copy setting is located on the Save tab. If the Always create backup copy setting is selected, Word created a backup copy of the document.

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Source:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827099

I'm currently doing some editing work for an anthology and some of the stories use curly quotes, which cause nothing but irritation on my end.

It doesn't take much splitting and combining dialogue to end up with a situation where half of them are backward - and that's if you're lucky. Getting back a revised manuscript with curly quotes is horrible.

Sits here with mouth fallen open. You mean....sigh...I can't use those cute little curly quotes anymore? I never, ever, gave it a thought of not copying correctly.

Heads over to my tool bar to dig up settings.

(Look how old this first post is...lol)

Hehe, bumping a five year old thread on this gaming forum I moderate will get you moderated.

Anyway, yeah, I hate smart quotes. Turn those things off. I'm glad I have them turned off and ready to go. 8)

A lot of newbie writers don't know what smart quotes are, or even how to turn them off.

Some writers think that agents and editors want smart quotes.
Nonsense.
They just want to read the manuscript.
When the book is bought, the typesetter software will have to be run no matter what. Then, when you correct the proofs, when you find typos that aren't your fault, you won't be charged for the revisions. I think just about every publisher charges for revisions past the first proof, no?

nonantroll said:

Some writers think that agents and editors want smart quotes.
Nonsense.
They just want to read the manuscript.
When the book is bought, the typesetter software will have to be run no matter what. Then, when you correct the proofs, when you find typos that aren't your fault, you won't be charged for the revisions. I think just about every publisher charges for revisions past the first proof, no?

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No.

It depends on the number and nature of the errors. It's much less costly now than it used to be.

I am kind of irritated now that I know what the problem is. during my writing I have noticed the smart quotes freaking out and just started copy and pasting the right quote throughout. Now that I have turned the option off, is there anyway of fixing my 84K word document?! or do I now have a busy morning of manually changing them all....

I type everything in courier. Never noticed curly quotes at all. And have never had a translation problem.

Pg 3 of a million, switching curly quotes. Not too bad. another way to revise

control f.

find " and replace with "

replace all

once you've switched you straight quotes it'll just replace the curly with straight.

defyalllogic said:

control f.

find " and replace with "

replace all

once you've switched you straight quotes it'll just replace the curly with straight.

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Holy crap! you are now my most favorite person in the entire freaking world!!!!! I was on page 13...dutifully seeking out my curly "s and getting distracted every five minutes. Aww yes the sun is now a little brighter!

I wrote A Reaper's Tale with standard quotes. When it sold, I was told to switch 'em to curlies. I thought it strange, but meh, what the pub wants, the pub gets.

My other stuff is straight all the way, though. I don't like the curlies, and OpenOffice occasionally puts the wrong one in (66s instead of 99s), which means I have to prat about in edits.

Dave.C.Robinson said:

It doesn't take much splitting and combining dialogue to end up with a situation where half of them are backward - and that's if you're lucky. Getting back a revised manuscript with curly quotes is horrible.

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It's nothing to change them to straight quotes and then back again, but still some will be backwards especially with emdashes. If you want to fix them (and find missing quotes), here's one way.

Magali said:

I'd like to discuss a rather pesky problem. Every time I do a scene break in my WIP, and I type the asterisks, the four asterisks I am supposed to put in for a scene break (I started imagining present and future scenes again after many months) what I get is four bullets. How do I turn that off? I never use bullets. I want it so that when I type asterisk, asterisk is what I get. I have to go back and fix it for it to look the way I want. Please help.

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You probably have Automatic Bulleted Lists turned on.

In Word 2003 it's:
Tools
>AutoCorrect Options
>AutoFormat As You Type
Then turn off the auto lists options.

If you're using Word 2007 or something else, you might find this somewhere else (I'm not sure). Just look at your AutoCorrect options.

Word tip: turn on curly quotes

As an editor: if you write for publication, for the love of all that's holy, please, please, PLEASE, completely ignore all the advice you see here not to use straight quotes.

As an author: I can rarely recall a publisher who didn't want smart quotes. It happens, but not so much.

When the document goes to print it will almost certainly need curly quotes.

Look up your publisher's requirements. Unless your publisher specifically wants straight quotes, or you're only writing for the web, use curly quotes. And unless you're a guru at inserting them ... rely on Word's ability to do it for you ... then check your work to make sure it's right.

As for me? I have a 90,000 word anthology to edit, in which 10% of my authors have used straight quotes. Inconsistently. Some of them, from having talked to them, know to use smart quotes, but still they didn't set this consistently when they wrote their copy. And trying to search and replace to fix them is crashing Word, or inserting them incorrectly.

Sigh. I found this thread when looking for an automated solution, and it makes me sad to see this thread of advice on the web, because it probably contributed to my problem.

I've sold to several book publishers, and to more magazines than I can remember. Not one wanted curly/smart quotes in an e-submission. All, in fact, have warned against them.

With hard copy, it doesn't matter a darn which you use, but I've never sold to anyone who wanted curly/smart quotes in an e-submission.

Margarita Skies said:

I'd like to discuss a rather pesky problem. Every time I do a scene break in my WIP, and I type the asterisks, the four asterisks I am supposed to put in for a scene break (I started imagining present and future scenes again after many months) what I get is four bullets. How do I turn that off? I never use bullets. I want it so that when I type asterisk, asterisk is what I get. I have to go back and fix it for it to look the way I want. Please help.

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Four asterisks is not the correct way to show a scene break. Editors all use proofreaders' marks, and the correct proofreaders' mark is a single # centered on the line.