Straight quotes are great for programming and units of measure, but when it comes to composing beautiful, legible, articles, blog posts, or other bodies of text, curly (smart) quotes are the way to go. To many this detail may not be noticible, but this simple investment will add sophistication and professionalism to your content.
How it’s done
Many modern word processors and text editors will use smart quotes for you automatically, but there are times when you’ll need to specify the quote type yourself. Below is a quick reference guide for typing curly / smart quotes:
Mac OSX
| option + ] | opening single quote ( ‘ ) |
| option + Shift + ] | closing single quote ( ’ ) |
| option + [ | opening double quote ( “ ) |
| option + Shift + [ | closing double quote ( ” ) |
Windows
| alt + 0145 | opening single quote ( ‘ ) |
| alt + 0146 | closing single quote ( ’ ) |
| alt + 0147 | opening double quote ( “ ) |
| alt + 0148 | closing double quote ( ” ) |
