Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Turning Off Smart Quotes for Specific Styles.

Turning Off Smart Quotes for Specific Styles

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 6, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Janet wonders if there is a way to disable smart quotes for particular styles. She works on a lot of programming documentation, with code examples, where smart quotes are invalid syntax. She would like for Word to notice that she is typing or pasting in "code example" paragraph style or "literal" character style, and not change the quote marks.

There is no way to do this in Word. The smart quotes feature is part of the AutoFormat capabilities of Word, and as such is either on or off for the entire document. Further, turning smart quotes on or off at any given point only affects what you type from that point forward, and it doesn't affect anything you paste into the document.

The best solution for the situation where you are creating programming documentation and you don't want smart quotes to appear in paragraphs formatted with a certain style is to create a macro. The macro would step through the paragraphs in your document and, if the paragraph was the designated style, change any smart quotes to regular quotes. Such a macro could be run at any time to make any necessary changes to the smart quotes.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (3375) 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: Turning Off Smart Quotes for Specific Styles.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Understanding DATE Field Formatting

One of the most commonly used fields is the DATE field. You can specify how the DATE field displays the current date by ...

Discover More

Counting Unique Values

Need to know a count of unique values in a range of cells? There are a couple of ways you can tackle the problem.

Discover More

Formatting a PivotTable

You can format PivotTables using either manual formatting or automatic formatting. You need to be careful, however, as ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Maintaining Formatting when Inserting Documents

Word allows you to easily insert the contents of one document into another. Doing so, however, may result in unintended ...

Discover More

Quickly Changing Font Sizes

A quick little shortcut can help you easily step through different font sizes for whatever text you've selected. Word ...

Discover More

Removing the Box from a Text Box

Insert a text box, and it is automatically formatted to have a border around it. Getting rid of the border is easy, if ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 + 9?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.