Where Can You Control Automatic Smart Quotes and Dashes in macOS?

ByEmily Dolloff

Most people like smart quotes and dashes, at least most of the time. Your Mac is probably set up to turn the single (‘) and double (“) hash marks and double hyphens (–) that you type into the apostrophes (’) and single smart quotes (‘’), double smart quotes (“”), and em dashes (—) used in professional publications. However, in some situations, like programming, smart quotes and dashes are problematic. To prevent macOS from automatically inserting them, open System Settings > Keyboard and click the Edit button next to Input Sources. In the dialog that appears, turn off “Use smart quotes and dashes.” As a bonus tip, if you occasionally want single or double hash marks, such as to indicate feet and inches, instead of turning the entire feature off, immediately press Command-Z after typing a single or double hash mark to undo the change from straight to curly.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Wirestock)

Social Media: Smart quotes and dashes usually make your text look more professional. But if they’re problematic, you can turn off the feature that inserts them automatically or revert them on a one-off basis.

Similar Posts

  • I hear they are having a big football game on my birthday this year. I might catch some of it just for the commercials but will probably just go out to dinner with Grace to toast another year on this blue planet. Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team

    Don, Dean, Emily & Scott

  • Black History Month – Thurgood Marshall

    Way before Barack Obama broke the color barrier to become president of the USA, Thurgood Marshall broke that barrier for another of the most powerful and important positions in the country, that of Supreme Court Justice. After graduating from high school with honors he applied to the University of Maryland law school where he was not accepted because he was black. Instead, he went to Howard University and received his law degree in 1933.

    Before being appointed Supreme Court Justice, he had a stellar career from 1934 to 1961 as a lawyer for the NAACP where he won landmark civil rights cases. Beginning in 1940, Marshall won 29 of 323 US Supreme Court cases. One of his first big cases was Smith vs. Allwrite in 1944 which overthrew the South’s “White Primary”. The White Primary was a practice of excluding African Americans from the Democratic Party. It was most common in a state where that party controlled the state government.

    In 1954 Marshall achieved a landmark victory with the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. This Supreme Court decision demolished the legal basis for segregation in the USA. It also made state-enforced racial segregation in public schools invalid.

    In 1961 he was appointed the the US Court of Appeals by President Kennedy. He was the first African American on the Court of Appeals and went on to be appointed to the Second Court of Appeals. President Johnson made him the Solicitor General in 1965 and later in 1967 President Johnson nominated him for the Supreme Court.

    On the Supreme Court he was a steadfast supporter of positive gender and racial action policies and in his 24 years on the court he became a vocal liberal on a conservative-dominated court. He was an ardent supporter of Constitutional protection of individual rights, in particular the rights of criminal suspect versus the government. Marshall’s backing of Affirmative Action led to his strong dissent in the Regents of the University of California vs. Blake in 1978. Justice William Brennan was Marshall’s most reliable confederate who voted with him against the death penalty.

    Citing poor health, Thurgood Marshall stepped down from the court in 1991 and remained a vocal critic of the court until his death in 1993 at the age of 84.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    The trip up the the Everglades was pretty uneventful although we did see alligators and eagles as we were watching nature go by. Grace wants to go back up for an airboat ride so we will have to put that on the list.

    I am very happy to report that Small Dog Electronics now offers Go-Pro cameras and accessories. It took us many tries but I was able to meet with someone that could make a decision at CES in Las Vegas so we are now all set and Go-Pro should be in all of our stores. We’ll feature skiing and motorcycling kits up in the Green Mountains and some surf-oriented bundles down in Key West.

    I guess this should be in a soapbox but I just want to make a quick statement that I feel that Tim Cook and Apple are 100% correct in resisting the government’s attempt to force them to create software to defeat the encryption inherent in the iPhone. One of Apple’s most valuable commodities is safety. You know when you buy an Apple product that your data is safe. Safe from most viruses, malware, ransomware and also that your private data remains just that…private. While I certainly sympathize with those investigating the horrible San Bernadino terrorist actions, I do not feel that we should pay an even higher price and sacrifice our liberty and privacy as a result. Bravo to Tim Cook and Apple.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is the “**Tempus Pro Weather Station.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002092 This complete wireless weather station has been one of out best selling devices. It combines an indoor monitoring station with an outdoor instrument and an iPhone or iPad App to give you complete weather information. It includes sensors for indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, rainfall and wind speed. It is simple to install and works by Bluetooth between the outdoor and indoor sensor and Wi-Fi to your iPhone. This is normally $159.99 but for this week for Kibbles & Bytes readers it is “**$25 off at $134.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002092