Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Replacing Some Smart Quotes.

Replacing Some Smart Quotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 25, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021


3

Greg has a large document that uses smart quotes throughout it. He needs to replace some, but not all, of the quote marks and apostrophes with their non-smart equivalents.

This is actually a rather common occurrence. Many people use smart quotes in their documents to give a more "finished" look to what they are writing, but sometimes need to have regular quote marks and apostrophes used in some instances, such as when noting minutes and seconds with times in the text.

The trick to doing this type of search and replace is to turn off Word's smart quote capabilities. Follow these steps:

  1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
  2. At the left side of the dialog box click Proofing.
  3. Click AutoCorrect Options button. Word displays the AutoCorrect dialog box.
  4. Make sure the AutoFormat As You Type tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)
  5. Figure 1. The AutoFormat As You Type tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.

  6. Make sure the Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes option is cleared.
  7. Click OK to dismiss the AutoCorrect dialog box.
  8. Click OK to dismiss the Word Options dialog box.

Now you are ready to do your find and replace operation:

  1. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. (See Figure 2.)
  2. Figure 2. The Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

  3. Put either a quote mark or apostrophe in the Find What box.
  4. Put the same character in the Replace With box.
  5. Make sure you aren't searching for any formatting or using any formatting in the replacement text.

Use the controls in the dialog box to step through each occurrence of the character and replace it, if desired. Find and Replace will find every occurrence of the character you entered in step 2, regardless of whether it is "smart" or not. Since the smart quotes option is turned off, the replacement will be a regular quote mark or apostrophe, as desired.

There is one caveat to the information presented here: If you are doing a search with wildcards turned on, Word is much more discriminating in what is looks for. While a regular search doesn't differentiate between regular and smart quotes, a wildcard search does. Thus, you can't just type a regular quote in the Find What box when doing the wildcard search. Instead, you must hold down the Alt key and use the numeric keypad to type the correct code for the smart quote character you want: 0145 (opening apostrophe), 0146 (closing apostrophe), 0147 (opening quote), or 0148 (closing quote).

There is no way to avoid stepping through all occurrences of quote marks or apostrophes in the document, as they all must be examined so you can determine if you want to make a change. When you are done making your changes, make sure that you turn smart quotes back on (use the steps earlier in this tip), if you normally type with them turned on.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7551) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Replacing Some Smart Quotes.

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

Solving Simultaneous Equations

One branch of mathematics allows you to work with what are called "simultaneous equations." Working with this type of ...

Discover More

Editing While Spell-Checking

When you run a spell-check on a document, you may end up seeing other things that need to be edited. Never fear; you can ...

Discover More

Creating a Table of Contents from TOC Fields

If you inserted a bunch of TOC fields in your document, you can create your table of contents quite easily based on those ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Automatically Selecting Words

When editing a document, Word normally selects entire words as you use the mouse to select text. This tip explains why ...

Discover More

Shortcut for Em and En Spaces

Typographers know that not all spaces are created equal. When creating a document, most people use spaces created by ...

Discover More

Understanding Hyphens and Dashes

Word provides you with three types of hyphens and two types of dashes that you can use in your documents. Understanding ...

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 2 + 5?

2024-05-29 10:01:47

Andrew

>>There is no way to avoid stepping through all occurrences of quote marks or apostrophes in the document....

What Tomek said, which is why I find it more useful to "smarten-up" up all quotes (single and double) by turning smart quotes on and then doing a replace all on all single quotes with a single quote and all double quotes with a double quote - and then dealing with exceptions - there usually aren't any.

Andy.


2024-05-26 15:41:24

Tomek

Also, when typing, you can revert back to regular quote/apostrophe by pressing Ctrl+Z as soon as Word converts them to smart ones. It may be easier than stepping through all occurrences of quote marks or apostrophes in the document, but does require extra attention.


2024-05-26 15:30:40

Tomek

Are you curious how Word determines which smart quote/apostrophe (open or close) to use? If you understand this, you may not need to do the tedious task of reviewing the document as described in this tip.

It seems that if there is white space before a quote/apostrophe then the opening one will be used. If it directly follows other characters, then the closing one will be used. There is no pairing of the quotes.

Hence beware, if you include trailing spaces in your quote, it will end with an opening quote/apostrophe.
Also check the comments in the tip
https://wordribbon.tips.net/T011833_Adding_Smart_Quotes_through_Macro_Text.html
where I have learned that an apostrophe followed by two digits, e.g., '24 will be (usually) smartly converted to a closing apostrophe, as it should.


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu 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.