When you type a quotation mark (“) or an apostrophe (‘) on a standard computer keyboard, you are generating a “Straight Quote.” It is a perfectly vertical, utilitarian character originally designed for typewriters and programming languages. However, the moment you press the spacebar after typing a straight quote, Microsoft Word’s AutoFormat engine will automatically intercept the character and curl it inward, creating typographical “Smart Quotes” (often called curly quotes).
While Smart Quotes look elegant and professional in a printed novel or an essay, they are an absolute disaster for technical writing. If you are using Microsoft Word to draft HTML, Python scripts, or complex command-line arguments, these curly quotes will completely break your code when pasted into a terminal or code editor, resulting in bizarre syntax errors that are incredibly difficult to diagnose by eye.
You can dive into the AutoFormat options to explicitly disable the Smart Quote replacement, forcing Microsoft Word to respect the raw, straight characters you actually typed on your keyboard.
How to Turn Off Smart Quotes in Word
You must uncheck the specific replacement rule within the AutoFormat As You Type settings.
- Open your document in Microsoft Word.
- Click on File in the top-left corner of the ribbon.
- Click on Options at the bottom of the left sidebar.
- In the Word Options window, select Proofing from the left-hand navigation pane.
- Click the AutoCorrect Options… button in the main pane.
- A new dialog box will open. Click on the tab labeled AutoFormat As You Type.
- Look under the very first section labeled “Replace as you type.”
- Locate the checkbox labeled “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes”.
- Uncheck this box.
- Click OK twice to close both windows and save your changes.
Microsoft Word will instantly stop curling your punctuation. The next time you type a quotation mark or an apostrophe, it will remain perfectly straight, ensuring your technical documentation and code snippets remain functional and accurate.