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Mac Pages "Use Smart Quotes and Dashes" replaces apostrophe too

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The way that the Pages app handles straight and smart quotes is clunky and problematic. Is there a way to fix it? Here's the problem. **Update: I assumed when asking this question that "straight apostrophes" are correct even in styles where "curly quotes" are correct. On further research, however, I can't find examples of published works using this mix. This question and its answer (below) may still be of use to people with the same false assumption I had—if they exist.** If you disable smart quotes (via Settings > Auto-Correction -> "Use Smart Quotes and Dashes"), then apostrophes are placed correctly but double and single quotes are "straight". For example: > She said, "She's telling me, 'That's no moon.'" If you enable smart quotes, the quotes are now all correct, but apostrophes (at "She's" and "That's") are now changed to curly quotes. > She said, “She’s telling me, ‘That’s no moon.’” This is *also* incorrect. Correct would be to use curly quotes (double and single) but a "straight" apostrophe, thus: > She said, “She's telling me, ‘That's no moon.’” An apostrophe is not the same as a single quote. In the interest of clarity, in terms of HTML what is correct would be (I've typed HTML here, though it may appear as normal text, but at least formatted correctly): > She said, "She's telling me, 'That's no moon.'" The question, then, is: is there a setting in Pages that enables it to type English correctly, as many other word processors do; that is, to use curly quotes in general but to automatically recognize apostrophes and place them where appropriate? And to be clear, I'm not asking how to type straight apostrophes manually. I know that Ctrl+' will type a straight quote. If Pages required me to do that it would be the only word processor I know of that does so. I'm asking whether it knows how to do so automatically?
Asked by Jeff Wofford (135 rep)
Mar 20, 2024, 12:44 PM
Last activity: Mar 21, 2024, 02:16 PM