Apostrophes trigger weird backspace behavior in Mail

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Level 1

5 points

Apostrophes trigger weird backspace behavior in Mail

I upgraded to Mavericks a couple of days ago, and since then I've had the weirdest and most annoying problem in my Mail app (and ONLY in my Mail app):

If I type a contraction ending in "re", (example: we're, they're), the spacebar sends the cursor back one character instead of adding a space after the word. So, it deposits the cursor back beteween the "re".

If I form a contraction with any other letter combination (I'll, he'd, it's), the spacebar does nothing on the first strike. I have to hit it twice to get a space after the word. At all other times, the spacebar functions normally.

I've tried turning off spelling checks on my global keyboard preferences, and on Mail.app preferences; I've tried restarting the app and my MacBook. Nothing helps. And since I'm not a very formal writer, it bites me in the *** approximately seventy thousand times a day.

Is there any way to cure this disease?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), Affects Mail.app only

Posted on Feb 7, 2014 8:24 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,922 points

Feb 8, 2014 7:21 AM in response to Bentobabe

See if this earlier discussion helps

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4443793

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Answer 2

Bentobabe Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 9, 2014 10:50 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

It doesn't. I started there. That discussion is limited to Safari. I *did* try one of the (unsuccessful) suggestions around spellchecking, but it didn't affect the problem in any way.

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Answer 3

Feb 11, 2014 8:21 PM in response to Bentobabe

I solved it by unchecking "Use Smart Quotes" in the Keyboard > Text Preference Pane. Once I did that, the apostrophe in mail works normally. All of the "Substitutions" still work normally. Don't really know what I give up with "Smart Quotes", but regaining control of the apostrophe is worth almost anything!

Hope this helps.

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,922 points

Feb 11, 2014 8:57 PM in response to owsi35990

owsi35990 wrote:

I solved it by unchecking "Use Smart Quotes" in the Keyboard > Text Preference Pane.

Interesting! What font are you using for messages you send?

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Answer 5

Feb 12, 2014 7:33 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Comic Sans MS 18. Seems strange, I know. I played around changing fonts, signatures, etc. for several months before I stumbled onto the "Smart Quotes".

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Answer 6

Bentobabe Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 12, 2014 8:50 AM in response to owsi35990

That fixed it, many thanks!!

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Answer 7

Sep 17, 2014 3:14 PM in response to Bentobabe

I have now caught the apostophe bug. Writing an eMail I found that the first time I hit the space bar after an apostophe the curser jumped back, not quite to the apostrophe, but one letter short of it.

for some reason the substitutions menu is greyed out, so I don't think I was using smart quotes.

I may have sorted it, for the time being by changing from check spelling when I send to check spelling as I write - in mail preferences.

I would be interested to hear whether anyone else has a more permanent cure. I don't see why I should set the spelling preferences other than how I want to use them - but the apostrophe bug was driving me crazy.

C.W.

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Answer 8

Oct 24, 2014 7:20 AM in response to Charles West

Fixed it for me too. Many thanks. This weird behaviour only occured when I upgraded to Yosemite btw.

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Answer 9

Oct 26, 2014 6:30 PM in response to Bentobabe

Are you sure that the "smart quotes" box really fixed the problem? I have the same problem, but what happens is that when I type an apostrophe, it is at first a straight apostrophe, until I hit the space bar after the word in which I used it, at which time the straight apostrophe turns into a "smart" (i.e., slanted) apostrophe, and the cursor jumps back to the end of the word that was just autocorrected from straight to smart apostrophe.

Turning off smart quotes indeed prevents the backspace, but it does so by *not* turning the straight apostrophe into a slanted apostrophe. So yeah, it prevents the annoying backspace, but at the cost of functionality. How has apple not fixed this after all these months? Does mail just not misbehave this way for most people?

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Answer 10

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,922 points

Oct 27, 2014 8:11 AM in response to scotthaile

scotthaile wrote:

Does mail just not misbehave this way for most people?

Could be -- I've never seen any sign of it on my 10.9 or 10.10.

If they can't duplicate it at Apple, there's not much chance of them figuring out how to fix it.

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Answer 11

Oct 27, 2014 6:40 PM in response to Bentobabe

It just happened to me in 10.10 (Yosemite), but -- only in Mail! I solved it by changing spell check from "never" to "as I type".

Very odd. The problem just popped up the other day, after I'd already been using Yosemite for a week.

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Answer 12

Oct 27, 2014 6:57 PM in response to Julie Stahlhut

Thank you! Still a little bit problematic since I don't necessarily want spellcheck on my email, but a good option to keep my smart apostrophes.

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Answer 13

Oct 30, 2014 11:54 AM in response to Julie Stahlhut

Many thanks. This problem, only occurred with me yesterday, a week after I'd loaded Yosemite, and, I think, only on mail, not Pages or Numbers. I tried the earlier suggestions before getting to yours and it's working!!

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Answer 14

Nov 4, 2014 8:06 PM in response to owsi35990

Thank you so so much for the tip! I've been trying to figure this out since upgrading to Yosemite!

Adam

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Answer 15

Nov 11, 2014 3:50 PM in response to Bentobabe

Apple, I just recreated this problem on my iMac (wired KB, no wireless KB) by changing Mail > Preferences > Composing > Spellcheck from "as I type" to "never". Then type a contraction ending in 're and the space bar causes the cursor to jump back as others have stated, to the spot 'r|e

Next, I went into System Preferences > Keyboard > Text, and turned off "use smart quotes" and the problem went away again.

From this point (smart quotes off, spell checking never), if I turn Smart Quotes ON, the problem returns.

The problem is dependent on the state of both settings.

The spacebar in Mail "works" if I have either of the following setting combinations:

Keyboard: smart quotes OFF, Mail: check spelling ANY SETTING

Keyboard: smart quotes ON, Mail: check spelling AS I TYPE

Other combinations FAIL

Keyboard: smart quotes ON, Mail: Check spelling NEVER

Keyboard: smart quotes ON, Mail: Check Spelling WHEN I CLICK SEND

Looks to me like there's a bug in Mail > Preferences > Check spelling > NEVER and WHEN I CLICK SEND that interacts badly with Keyboard > Smart quotes ON.

Thanks.

Todd Smithgall

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