Avoid the look of an amateur by properly using typographer’s quotation marks (curly quotes) and apostrophes and primes in your desktop published documents. Learn how to access the curly quotes and proper apostrophes on a Mac or Windows PC.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: NA
Here's How:
- Don't use the ' and " (Shift + ') marks on your keyboard for proper quotation marks and apostrophes [ ‘ ’ “ ” ].
- On a Mac, use Option+] and Shift+Option+] for the left (open) and right (closed) single quotes. For Windows, use ALT 0145 and ALT 0146 for the left and right single quotes (hold down the ALT key and type the numbers on the numeric keypad).
- On a Mac, use Option+[ and Shift+Option+[ for the left and right double quotes. For Windows, use ALT 0147 and ALT 0148 for the left and right double quotation marks (curly quotes).
- In HTML code the characters as & #0145; for ‘ and & #0146; for ’ and & #0147; for “ and & #0148; for ” (ampersand-no space, pound sign, number, semi-colon).
- Or, use the Unicode numeric entities of & #8216; for ‘ and & #8217; for ’ and & #8220; for “ and & #8221; for ” (ampersand-no space, pound sign, number, semi-colon).
- Called primes, use the upright tick mark ' for feet and minutes and " for inches and seconds as in 1'6" (1 foot, 6 inches) or 30'15" (30 minutes, 15 seconds).
Tips:
- Many programs offer an option to automatically (as you type or on demand) convert all ' and " marks to typographer’s quotation marks. Use it to speed up the task but be careful about converting primes used to designate measurements.
- Oversized curly quotes can add interest to pull-quotes in your design.
- When using the ALT keystrokes in Windows, use the numeric keypad not the row of numbers above the alphabet and be sure Num Lock is turned ON.
