How to Completely Disable the ‘Smart Quotes’ Auto-Correction in Microsoft Word

When you type a quotation mark or an apostrophe in Microsoft Word, the software automatically intercepts your keystroke and replaces the straight, vertical tick mark (“) with a stylized, curly quotation mark (“ ”). This automatic formatting, officially known as “Smart Quotes”, is designed to make standard paragraphs and essays look professionally typeset.

However, if you use Microsoft Word to draft HTML, write software code, or prepare data for import into a database or terminal interface, those curly quotes will instantly break your syntax and cause fatal errors. Computer programming languages only recognise straight quotes. To prevent Word from silently corrupting your code snippets, you must completely disable the Smart Quotes feature.

Disabling Smart Quotes in AutoFormat Settings

Because Smart Quotes are considered an “AutoCorrect” feature, the toggle switch is hidden deep within the proofing configuration menus.

1. Open the Microsoft Word desktop application. (You can open a blank document if necessary).
2. Click on the File tab located in the top-left corner of the ribbon menu.
3. Look at the very bottom of the green sidebar on the left and click on Options.
4. The “Word Options” window will appear. In the left-hand navigation pane, click on Proofing.
5. At the top of the main panel, click the button labelled AutoCorrect Options….
6. A new, smaller window with multiple tabs will appear. Click on the AutoFormat As You Type tab at the top.
7. Look under the very first section titled “Replace as you type”.
8. Find the checkbox labelled “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes” and click it to uncheck the box.

Ensuring Full Deactivation

To ensure Word does not accidentally apply the formatting during other automated processes, you need to check one more tab in this exact same window.

1. While still inside the AutoCorrect Options window, click over to the AutoFormat tab (located right next to “AutoFormat As You Type”).
2. Look under the “Replace” section.
3. Find the exact same checkbox, labelled “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes”, and uncheck this box as well.
4. Click OK to close the AutoCorrect window, and then click OK again to close the Word Options window.

From this point forward, every quotation mark and apostrophe you type will remain a simple, straight, computer-readable character. If you need to fix curly quotes in a document you have already written, you can simply use the “Find and Replace” tool (Ctrl+H) to search for a quotation mark and replace it with another quotation mark; Word will automatically convert all the curly ones back to straight ones based on your new settings.