Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 8, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
"Smart quotes" is the Word phrase for what typographers call opening quotes and closing quotes. If you look at the quote marks in any printed book, you will notice that the quote marks at the beginning of a quote look different from those at the end; these are smart quotes, according to Word.
The opening quote is produced by holding down the Alt key and typing 0147 on the keypad. The closing quote is produced in the same fashion, only you type 0148 on the keypad. Since this can get rather tedious, Word has included an AutoFormat option that changes normal quotes with smart quotes. This option is set by default, but there may be times when you want to check the setting or turn off the option. You can find the option by following these steps:
Figure 1. The AutoFormat As You Type tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (272) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Automatically Using Smart Quotes.
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