[Three Lefts]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:21:08 -0700 (PDT), laredotornado
wrote:

Hi,

I'm using MS Word 2003 on Windows XP. How do I convert smart quotes
to straight quotes in a document? I changed the AutoFormat setting
(unchecked the "Straight quotes as Smart quotes" option), but nothing
changed in my document.

Your help is appreciated, - Dave

If it's just a few, you can use Ctrl-Z (undo) immediately after typing
the quote to change it back to a straight (dumb) quote.

When you type a quote mark (single or double), Word changes it to a
smart quote if that feature is enabled. This "change" is logged in the
undo stack, so the Undo function (Ctrl-Z) will undo it and put the
straight quotes back.

This is not a good solution if you have a lot of quotes, but I have
used it for short memos that will be pasted into email messages where
the email program may not support the extended character set and the
smart quotes end up looking like black rectangles.

It also works for other special characters like -- becoming arrows
and -- becoming em-dash etc.