How to NOT have curly quotes in TextEdit? Updating to 10.4.7 changed style

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Level 2

306 points

How to NOT have curly quotes in TextEdit? Updating to 10.4.7 changed style

Just updated to 10.4.7 today. After I updated, I opened a document in TextEdit, and all the quotation marks -- which previously had been "straight" quotes -- had become "curly quotes" or "smart quotes" as they're sometimes called. I need for them to be "straight" quotes again, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to change it back, or how they all got changed to "curly" to begin with. I just looked an ALL my TextEdit documents have been changed to curly style. Any new quotes I type are also curly quotes.

I have TextEdit set to "plain text" (i.e. the "Make Rich Text" option is not checked). The "Plain text encoding" in the Preferences was set to "Automatic," but I changed it to UTF-8; either way, I still get curly quotes. That didn't fix it. The box "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files" is checked.

What do I do to get my straight quotes back? A Web search provided answers on how to get curly quotes when you otherwise don't have them, but not the reverse -- getting rid of them when you DO have them.

Another detail that may provide a clue: when I type the letters f and then i, the program automatically kerns them together. I also want that to stop.

I know this may seem like a trivial problem, but it's driving me nuts -- I'm sure there is a simple answer out there somewhere.

Thanks.

15 PowerBook, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Aug 7, 2006 5:09 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,456 points

Aug 7, 2006 6:27 PM in response to Tuffy Nicolas

I just
looked an ALL my TextEdit documents have been changed
to curly style. Any new quotes I type are also curly
quotes.

Sounds like your font may be set to Hoefler Text, whose straight stuff looks curly. Try changing it. I don't see any way your quotes could actually be changed from straight to curly in TextEdit .

Another detail that may provide a clue: when I type
the letters f and then i, the program automatically
kerns them together. I also want that to stop.

Changing the font may fix that too. Also there is Format > Font > Ligature > Use None

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Answer 2

Tuffy Nicolas Author

Level 2

306 points

Aug 7, 2006 7:28 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom --
Thanks for the suggestions, but that's not the problem. My default font, and the font all the documents are displayed in, in Monaco 10 point. No hint of Hoefler Text.

Changing the ligature to "Use None" does work for a single document -- but every other document, including all new documents that I create, still have ligature implemented. I would have to manually change every single document to not have ligature. Isn't there an obvious way to set the preferences permanently not to have ligature? And, of course, to not have curly quotes?

What I don't understand is that everything was set perfectly before I updated to 10.4.7, and immediately afterward, everything was screwy. What happened?

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,456 points

Aug 8, 2006 3:38 AM in response to Tuffy Nicolas

Thanks for the suggestions, but that's not the
problem. My default font, and the font all the
documents are displayed in, in Monaco 10 point. No
hint of Hoefler Text.

Very strange! You might try trashing any .plist file in Home/Library/Preferences related to TextEdit and see if that has any effect.

Also you might create a new user account and see if you have the same behavior there. If not, it means the problem is caused by something in your main account.

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Answer 4

Tuffy Nicolas Author

Level 2

306 points

Aug 8, 2006 9:47 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom --
I did as you said, and quit TextEdit, then trashed "com.apple.TextEdit.plist" from the preferences folder, then restarted TextEdit. I "successfully" had tossed out all my settings, meaning that my documents were back to being Rich text, having the ruler, etc. But when I changed TextEdit's preferences back to being Plain Text only, the curly quotes were still there. So, no change.

I hesitate to start a new account just to test this problem -- I don't like fooling around with accounts. There must be a simpler answer. Perhaps Apple changed the way the quote marks look and work in Monaco with 10.4.7? Or perhaps there's some System-wide universal way to turn on or off curly quotes?

Any other suggestions? I'm still at square one on this.

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Answer 5

CT

Level 7

24,263 points

Aug 8, 2006 9:54 AM in response to Tuffy Nicolas

Weird. Hate to ask you annoying questions, but ....
Are you sure your document is in "plain text"?

What do you see in the Format menu?
Is it "Make Plain Text" or "Make Rich Text"?
If the former, what happens when you try the "Make plain text" command in the Format menu? (command-shift-T)

charlie

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,456 points

Aug 8, 2006 9:59 AM in response to Tuffy Nicolas

I hesitate to start a new account just to test this
problem -- I don't like fooling around with accounts.

Your hesitation is unfounded. Creating a new account to see if a problem goes away is one of the most common troubleshooting techniques, and very simple.

Perhaps Apple changed
the way the quote marks look and work in Monaco with
10.4.7?

Very unlikely. Could you send me one of your docs as an attachment to an email? I can easily verify how the quotes are actually encoded (curly is totally different from straight). tom at bluesky dot org.

Or perhaps there's some System-wide universal
way to turn on or off curly quotes?

No, this is something that individual apps do, or the user does by using a different keystroke (curly apostrophe is option + shift ], ’)

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Answer 7

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,456 points

Aug 8, 2006 11:00 AM in response to Tuffy Nicolas

Perhaps Apple changed
the way the quote marks look and work in Monaco

PS Perhaps you have more than one Monaco on your machine. Open FontBook and see if there is a dot next to this name. If so, expand the list and try deactivating all but the OS X .dfont version, which should be in System/Library/Fonts/

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