Confronted by Word problem of huge proportions.

[Guest]

Good morning helpful people:

When I copy text from Word '97 to Outlook Express, all my apostrophes are
changed into squares without my permission. I can't stand this kind of huge
irregularity in my otherwise quiet and predictable life.

Is there a reason for this horrible catastrophe? Is there a simple way
to fix it?

 

[Jay Freedman]

I certainly hope you had your tongue planted firmly in cheek when you wrote
that.

The apostrophes (and any quotes as well) are probably being changed by
Word's AutoCorrect setting from "straight quotes" to "smart (or curly)
quotes". Outlook Express doesn't understand smart quotes, so it shows
squares instead.

Go to Tools > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat As You Type and turn off the
option to change "straight quotes" to "smart quotes".

To get rid of existing smart quotes, after turning off the option, use Edit

Replace to replace a single quote with a single quote (the same character

in both Find and Replace boxes) and click Replace All. Repeat the same
replacement for double quotes.

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TameAutoFormat.htm for more of
this sort of thing.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, when I paste text with smart quotes into a plain-text OE message, they
are converted to straight quotes. If "rich text" (HTML) is being used, the
encoding could be an issue.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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