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[OS X 10.9.3 (Mavericks)] I've disabled smart quotes in the keyboard settings, but whenever I type ' or " in Messages (old name: iChat), they get converted to ‘ and “. How do I disable this default conversion?

Cilan
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7 Answers7

57

In addition to System Preferences, this feature can be turned on and off in each app via Edit > Substitutions. Make sure you check that setting as well.

Tom Gewecke
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    In addition to System Preferences I have no idea what this controls, TextEdit? :P – Cilan Jun 28 '14 at 21:32
  • Sorry, I can't understand your question. – Tom Gewecke Jun 29 '14 at 15:46
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    Don't worry, it was rhetoricle. Anyway, you cannot disable it on messages using system preferences. – Cilan Jun 29 '14 at 15:59
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    Right, but you CAN using the Substitutions menu, and it worked for me. Fantastic! It's suboptimal that I will have to toggle that for whenever I am texting my one friend with a dumb phone, but at least I can! – krs013 Jan 19 '15 at 07:18
  • No idea why the enable this by default... Thanks – Chad Scira Sep 18 '19 at 10:24
  • The setting is under keyboard -> text – NSjonas Oct 18 '23 at 19:14
  • @Cilan The system setting seems to apply to the Notes app, at least. And on Sonoma 14.1.2, Apple seems to have messed something up. Disabling it doesn't work. Changing the replacements for double and single quotes has effect. For single quotes, it's possible to select the bottom-most option - the actual single quotes. Which in effect disables smart quotes for single quotes. But for some reason, the bottom-most option for the double quotes is the same as the top-most - "smart" double quotes (on my older MBP running Monterey, the bottom-most option are regular double quotes). – Gene Pavlovsky Dec 01 '23 at 15:48
21

In El Capitan (i.e. 10.11.1), I solved it by changing the Smart Quote settings:

  1. Open Keyboard in System Preferences
  2. Go to Text tab
  3. Change values for "for Double Quotes" and "for Single Quotes" from drop-down selection to use the simple quotes "" rather than ““

That's it. No need to disable or do any other workaround. Hope this helps, as I had this problem with Message app when posting code.

Pang
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Jonauz
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    Thanks, but this question has been long solved (1 year 4 months). However, this seems like a good alt for el capitan users – Cilan Oct 29 '15 at 12:11
18

Unfortunately none of the posted solutions worked for me. I've solved by changing my keyboard layout from:

  • U.S. International - PC

to:

  • U.S.
Francesco Borzi
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13

This shell script disables smart quotes in all applications that currently have preferences files:

for d in $(defaults domains|tr -d ,);do
  osascript -e "app id \"$d\""&>/dev/null||continue
  defaults write $d SmartQuotes -bool false
  # defaults write $d SmartDashes -bool false
  # defaults write $d SmartLinks -bool false
  # defaults write $d SmartCopyPaste -bool false
  # defaults write $d TextReplacement -bool false
  # defaults write $d CheckSpellingWhileTyping -bool false
done

Uncomment the commented out lines to also disable other substitutions or spell checking.

lahwran
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Lri
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  • "all applications that currently have preferences files" - meaning only those where one already made substitution changes? – Bondt Mar 25 '15 at 14:19
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    i'm guessing this is a bash script? would be helpful if you mention how and where this code should be executed. it's potentially very useful but less so without context – Eaten by a Grue Mar 09 '16 at 22:45
  • Edit a plain text file called "diablesq.sh", and paste the text into it.

    Open a terminal window.

    Type "sh disablesq.sh"

     – Resuna Jan 03 '20 at 20:27
13

Disable smart quotes:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false

Disable smart dashes:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled -bool false

Disable smart quotes for TextEdit:

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit SmartQuotes -bool false

Disable smart dashes for TextEdit:

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit SmartDashes -bool false

Juliano Petronetto
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5

In macOS Ventura (13.2):

  1. Go to System Settings (eg: from the Apple menu)
  2. Select Keyboard in the left navigation
  3. Under Text Input click Edit...
  4. Near the bottom, turn off Use smart quotes and dashes
Laurence Gonsalves
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4

You will find this option in the Keyboard Preferences pane:

  • Open System Preferences.
  • Click on the Keyboard icon.
  • Select the Text tab.
  • Uncheck the Use smart quotes and dashes checkbox.

Note that this is almost a homework question. This is a keyboard/text related setting so it's fairly logical to find it under the Keyboard Preferences.

Laurent Giroud
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    In my question I noted that I've tried this and it didn't work. What I had to do was go under Edit -> Substitutions and disable it there through the app itself. – Cilan Jun 28 '14 at 20:39