How to turn off smart quotes and dashes in Word 2007
Jul 29th, 2008 by handolio
Click here to go straight to step-by-step instructions.
Anyone who’s used Word will know that, by default, it replaces bog-standard straight quotes (and here I’d demonstrate what they look like, but our theme will change them to curved ones) with curved ones. It also changes hyphens (-) to en dashes (–).
No big deal, you’d think. After all, it’s 2008. Surely nobody’s producing websites that can only handle the 93 printable characters provided by ASCII, a seven-bit telegraphic code developed in the 1960s?
Yeah, you’d think. Just yesterday we encountered a problem with, as our client described it to us, “some unknown entity (probably some rogue character)… breaking [the] import process”. We all ran to the transporter room with phasers set to stun, but they turned out to be talking about a curved apostrophe that had crept unbidden into a few hundred words of copy.
Don’t quote me
After more problems today, we found ourselves double-checking our PCs looking for the one on which we’d forgotten to disable the feature. Charlie asked if I could put together “a quick step-by-step list of how to turn off styled quote marks and lengthened dashes”. I could, and here it is:
1 Click the stupid, round, nameless button in the top left of Word.
2 Click Word Options, hidden irritatingly in the last place you’d expect to find it; at the bottom of the drop down menu that appears.
3 Click Proofing in the left-hand pane of the pointlessly over-styled and graphics-heavy window that appears.
4 Click the grey, blockily incongruous AutoCorrect Options… button.
5 Click the AutoFormat as you type tab.
6 Under Replace as you type, uncheck every. Single. Fucking. Option.
7 Click the AutoFormat tab.
8 Under Replace, uncheck every. Single. Fucking. Option. Again. Because clearly once wasn’t enough.
9 Click OK on both windows to get back to the unadulterated joy of using Word 2007.
Of course, this is elementary punctuation pedantry. If you want something a little harder, I heartily recommend Mr Phin’s Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes. At the time of writing, it’s attracted an extraordinary 150 comments.
While we’re being pedantic, I think it should be “Ten typographic mistakes that everyone makes”, but I’ll let a sub tell him. What’s the worst that could happen?
I think most subs would tell you that “that” is quite often a waste of space, particularly in a headline.
A wise man once told me that.
Get any closer to Janey and repeat that – she’ll rip your head clear off.
Funnily I don’t remember a single argument about omitting the word “that” at Dennis, but then I do find myself inserting it on proofs all the time. Unless you’re pushed for space, as in a headline, I don’t see any reason to remove it – it doesn’t help sentences to read more clearly.
Also, you may find this handy:
http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-tweaks/unfancy-quote/
It strips out all curly quote marks automatically from WordPress, preventing that particularly irritating error where WP puts a pesky stupid curly open quote mark (yes, this is a technical term) at the end of a block quote.
Nope, I don’t remember an argument, either – it’s just one of those things that used to get added to my copy, and after a while I began to see why.
Charlie & I didn’t used to see eye-to-eye on ‘that’, but I’ve noticed that he’s started to use it more, too. I’ve realised now that I’m intentionally dropping it from some of the less formal copy I write, as it seems to help with the tone. I guess you’ve got to know the rules before you can bend them.
Cheers for the link – too tired to investigate tonight. Been meaning to upgrade to 2.6 anyway, but I’m not sure after reading about your problems.
Ah, yeah – 2.6 completely borked my site for half an hour or so. I went back a day later and tried again, and I did eventually get the upgrade working – I think the problem was with V2.5 introducing a new requirement in wp-config.php. Version 2.5 kept working despite me failing to add this (clever software), v2.6 fell on its arse (baaad software).
So – it can be done, but back up the database first just in case
It’s weird; I tend to omit the ‘that’ from a sentence when I write it, probably because I try to keep my copy light and conversational*, but I do tend to insert them when I’m proofing stuff. For my money it’s a question of register, and in this context I probably should have thatted it up.
Merci bien for the link action, too; I need to do a follow-up post to that at some point. Did you know that I actually had people suggest I should kill myself because what I was saying was so pointless?
Thank you so much! I was about to downgrade word because clients were complaining. Thank you again.
Thank you for you excellent advice. That. Finally. Fucking. Did. It.
whoa thanks for the hilarious instructions. problem fixed!
Great, accurate instructions! Love the commentary.