I’ve know there’s a difference between “curly quotes” or “inverted quotes” and “straight quotes.” I figured that know one knows, cares or it really matters; but when it comes right down to it, I’ve never paid it much mind as I never took the time to figure out how to use them.
Or how about a hyphen, en dash or em dash.
Do you know the difference? Does anyone care? Do you know how to type proper quotes and accents?
I’ve got you covered:
Quotes & Accents
The Quotes & Accents website has all the info you need. It’s probably worth bookmarking for those interested in taking your punctuation to the next level as you cast those “dumb quotes” to the wayside.
For those using a Mac (Windows users it’s more difficult), using smart quotes is easy-peesy.
For example:
- Left double quote : option + [
- Right double quote: option + shift + [
- Left single quote: option + ]
- Right single quote: option + shift + ]
If you’re using Windows, for example, to do a left double quote: ALT 0147 (you can get the full list here, be sure to use your num keys and not the top row).
If you’re a Mac user, you can count your lucky stars that it’s so much easier on a Mac; but then again, you’re used to that, right? 😛
To get the full listing, along with the hyphen, en dash or em dash shortcut keys, take a look at the Quotes & Accents website (they also show you how to use special accented characters, too). It’s easy to remember, so if you need a quick review, you can jump to it easy enough. As for you Windows users, let Google be your guide.
Do you use “smart quotes”?
Thomas says
In MS Word you don’t have to do all that fancy-schmancy Mac option+ stuff, you just type with plain ol’ quote key and MS Word automatically changes it to the left/right quote as needed. Works the same with accents, automatically. Dashes too. Have you been away from Windows That long?
“This” is what you ‘get’ automatically using MS-Word – pretty cool huh? ~Still using Windows.
Eric Dye says
Right. Word, Pages and other word processors do this automatically, however, when you’re working in WordPress, Twitter and various web apps, this function isn’t built in. :-/