The Typographical Correction
By default, Google Docs attempts to make your writing look professionally typeset. When you type standard, straight quotation marks (") or apostrophes (') on your keyboard, Google Docs automatically intercepts the keystroke and replaces them with curly, angled “Smart Quotes.”
While this looks elegant in a printed novel, it is a nightmare for users who are using Google Docs to write programming code snippets, HTML tags, command-line instructions, or data strings. Code compilers and terminal windows do not recognize curly quotes and will throw syntax errors if you copy and paste text formatted this way. If you need your quotation marks to remain strictly utilitarian and straight, you must turn this feature off.
How to Turn Off Smart Quotes
You can stop Google Docs from automatically replacing your punctuation via the Preferences menu.
- Open your web browser and navigate to any open document in Google Docs.
- At the top of the screen, click on the Tools menu.
- Click on Preferences at the bottom of the dropdown list.
- A popup window will appear. Make sure you are on the General tab.
- Look down the list of checkboxes for the option labelled Use smart quotes.
- Uncheck this box.
- Click the blue OK button to save your changes.
From this point forward, whenever you type a quotation mark or apostrophe, Google Docs will leave it exactly as you typed it on your keyboard (as a straight, vertical line), ensuring your text remains perfectly compatible for copying into code editors or terminals.