Smart Quotes Again

February 16th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.com

Sometimes I feel like a broken record with all my squawking about Smart Quotes. And yet, I’m constantly receiving copy drafts that are rife with these pesky little buggers. Let me share with you a copywriting tip that will make web designers love you.

Have you ever published a web article or email newsletter that somehow ends up littered with funny looking symbols? This is the MS Word Smart Quotes issue. Let me show you what I mean, so you can identify when it happens to you…

Smart Quotes is the term for that thing Microsoft Word does to straight inch marks and footmarks. It turns them all curvy and cute so they look nice in your document and won’t be confused with their straight edge counterparts.

This would be fine, except that HTML doesn’t recognize Smart Quotes and converts them to gibberish as soon as you publish your web page of copy. In fact - none of the special formatting in Word translates to the web properly. So I would advise you to turn off ALL formatting before you type web copy into MS Word. Here’s how it’s done.

Step 1. In MS Word, go to top menu bar and click on the Tools pulldown menu. Scroll to Autocorrect options and highlight that.

Step 2. Tab over to Autoformat as you type. Then uncheck all the boxes in that category.

Now, when you hand your copywriting drafts to clients, or you transfer your Microsoft Word based text to an email newsletter, you won’t have to worry about those pesky Smart Quotes symbols littering up your document.

- Dina at Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing.

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Posted in Article Marketing, Copywriting for the Web |

4 Responses to “Smart Quotes Again”

1. Marie Says:
   February 19th, 2008 at 2:14 am

   Thanks for the screenshots! I’m one of the guilty ones. In fact, ONE MINUTE ago, I sent you a draft without turning off the smart quotes. Don’t lecture–I’ll do better next time!

2. Dina Says:
   February 22nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm

   Ah, Marie… no worries. I know though, that many of my clients are concerned with keeping costs down. It’s so much quicker when I don’t have to stop on those silly Smartquotes! Particularly if I’m doing something like an ebook…

   Thanks for stopping by the blog!

   Dina

3. Chris Ryman Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 6:13 pm

   Awesome tip!!
   Here are the office 2007 Instructions:
   Click on the office menu (office logo bubble in the top left)

   select “Word Options” at the bottom of that menu (next to the “exit word” button)

   Select “Proofing” on the Left

   Click the “Auto Correct options…” button

   Select the “AutoFormat” tab

   Then uncheck the “Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes” box.

   whew… thats a lot of clicks…

4. Dina Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 3:19 am

   Hey, Chris. Thanks for the 2007 update! Just goes to show how quickly computer and internet-related information can become obsolete.

   I’ve got a couple of articles out there on how to manage Constant Contact. They were written in 2005, but people still manage to find them and email to thank me today. It worries me a bit because I figure, they must have updated their system by now, which would render my tutorial fairly useless.

   Thanks for stopping by!

   Dina

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