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TextEdit in Mavericks changes the standard double quotes "Hello" to using curly, non-ascii quotation marks “Hello”. It does this even when you edit plain text documents. Is there a way to prevent this new behavior in Mavericks?

Tom Gewecke
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Berry Blue
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  • If you're looking for a text editor, then TextEdit is the wrong tool, and has many problems and limitations. Something like BBEdit is much more suited to the task. – benwiggy Oct 09 '20 at 21:12

5 Answers5

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This is not just TextEdit, it's Mavericks.

Under System Preferences > Keyboard, you can change the quotation marks.

Go to the 'Text' sub-menu. On the right-hand side of the box, uncheck the "Use smart quotes and dashes" checkbox.

Ciaran
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Rob
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    For those that still can't find it, more specifically: System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Uncheck the "Use smart quotes and dashes" checkbox. – Asaph Jun 20 '14 at 17:07
  • For the ones which already have a file damaged with this little hanging worms (I mean ‟ ″), look at the answer from igaar: http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/171855/22003 . – dan Jul 29 '15 at 08:11
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    "Smart quotes"? More like... "Dumb quotes". – catamphetamine Feb 20 '17 at 15:21
  • @Rob, Are you sure it's the problem with the OS itself? Then why do other apps not have this problem except for Textedit>? – Pacerier Aug 06 '17 at 01:02
  • @Pacerier probably because only mac native apps rely on that behavior. Similar to how mac text autocorrect only works in safari, etc – chrismarx Jul 13 '18 at 12:36
  • What even is the point of "smart quotes" to begin with... – kissu Nov 24 '23 at 18:52
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The following procedure worked for me:

In TextEdit select all your text by pressing ⌘ Cmd-A and then go to Edit > Substitutions and uncheck Smart Quotes. Make sure Smart Quotes is not active and it should be solved.

ilgaar
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    This should be the correct answer. – Pacerier Aug 06 '17 at 01:02
  • Tragically Cmd + a then toggling the setting seems to do nothing to get rid of them. You have to turn it off then do a normal edit menu -> find+replace to get rid of those smart quotes...after turning them off. – rogerdpack Oct 09 '20 at 16:32
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If you already unchecked System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Use smart quotes and dashes.

There's also a checkmark on TextEdit > Preferences > "Smart quotes" (I don't know the translation but it something like that).

Be sure to uncheck that one too.

Martiuh
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I tried unchecking the Smart quotes option in both the MAC system preferences system preferences -> keyboard -> text tab untick the use smart quotes and dashes option and in textedit app preferences at textedit -> preferences -> uncheck smart quotes and dashes in rich text documents only option

But the issue was still not resolved for me. When I type single quote or double quote in rich text document then it is converted to curly quote. For example, if I do a search using command+F for the single quote then it will not find any.

The only way I was able to solve this in my MAC is that I need to use ctrl key when typing either single quote or double quote. For example, when typing single quote I need to type ctrl + singlequote and when typing double quote I need to type ctrl + shift + doublequote

I am using MAC OS Catalina and rich text document, hope someone can point to a permanent fix for this rather than remembering the keyboard shortcut each time.

firstpostcommenter
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It appears that by default, TextEdit (and other apps) inherit from the preferences -> keyboard setting.

But they only inherit from it at start time. So you can change it in preferences -> keyboard, then restart you app.

Or if you specify it within the apps Edit menu -> Substitutions -> Smart quotes then it appears to override whatever the keyboard preference is (permanently) but for just that app. So they both work.

rogerdpack
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