Left Quotation Marks in Editor Do Not Work

zbigatron
(@zbigatron)

3 years ago
When writing pages or posts every time I type in a quotation mark (either single or double) that should be an “open” (i.e. left) quotation mark, it gets typed out as a “closed” (i.e. right) quotation mark.

What’s weird is that I can paste a left (single or double) quotation mark into the editor and it turns out fine in the editor (and then when I publish the change, the left quotation mark shows up fine, too). I can also edit the HTML and type in “ and that shows up fine in the editor, also. But it’s when I type directly from the keyboard OR when I paste a straight quotation mark, it gets automatically changed to a right quotation mark.

When I switch applications (e.g. Microsoft Word), everything works as it should so it seems like it’s a problem with the editor itself.

I’m using WordPress 6.2.2 and the Astra theme.

Any help would be appreciated.
- This topic was modified 3 years ago by zbigatron.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

George Appiah
(@gappiah)

3 years ago

You’re dealing with straight quotes and curly/smart quotes.

I don’t want to bore you with the technical details, but let’s just say that while we may call both “quotation marks” (or apostrophes, for the single variant) in ordinary lingo, these are totally different characters under the hood.

It even gets trickier because what you get when you hit these keys on your keyboard depends on the application you’re using: some applications (eg Microsoft Word and some desktop word-processing software) will give you the curly variant, while others (eg text editors and most other editors, especially anything built for the web) will give you the straight variant.

Luckily, there’s a way to tell the computer to give you exactly which variant you want, using key combinations (see the table below).

For instance, to get the curly double quote in any editor (including the WordPress editor) from a computer running Microsoft Windows, you’d hold down the ALT key and type
(from the numeric keypad) 0147 and 0148 respectively for the opening and closing quotes.

Thread Starter zbigatron
(@zbigatron)

3 years ago

Thanks for you response.

I realise the difference between straight and curly quotes, as you mention. What I don’t understand is why my wordpress editor is defaulting to closing single/double curly quotes when it should be displaying the opening quote version like it does in MS Word. Is there a way to fix this in settings somewhere instead of having to resort to using the ALT key each time I want to start a quote?

George Appiah
(@gappiah)

3 years ago

why my wordpress editor is defaulting to closing single/double curly quotes when it should be displaying the opening quote version like it does in MS Word.

Are you able to provide a URL where I can see this problem occurring? I’m thinking it may be a font-related issue.

I just discovered (and confirmed by testing on a fresh WordPress site) that WordPress’ default editor (aka Gutenberg) actually converts straight quotes to smart/curly quotes automatically.

See the screenshots below from my test, using two different fonts. The first screenshot uses “Segoe UI”, the second uses “Times New Roman”, and the third screenshot shows the code behind the page where you can the correct smart quotes in the code.

So I’m suspecting your issue may have to do with the site’s font, rather than WordPress displaying closing curly quotes instead of opening curly quotes.

If you could provide the URL, I could take a closer look for you.

Standing by.

Thread Starter zbigatron
(@zbigatron)

3 years ago

So, for example, on this page: https://knight.zbigatron.com/review/ai-superpowers-by-kai-fu-lee-review/ you’ll find plenty of open quotation marks. But everything is fine on the published page because I’ve manually entered them in correctly. However, when I was typing in the Gutenberg editor, the marks come out inverted (I always get the closed version of the quotation marks, never the open) and I then have to copy and paste over them or go and edit the HTML directly before hitting the “publish” button. When I paste in the correct left quotation mark, the editor shows it correctly (even before publishing).