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Why am I getting a strange double quote (“) in Open Office instead of the ordinary one (")?

Every time I type the double quote, I get the weird version instead of the ordinary one. How do I get the normal one instead when I type it? Is there a way to fix this unwanted behavior?

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Sayaman
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    Technically, you're getting the (correct) double quote because Microsoft Word has always done that, and OpenOffice & LibreOffice try to be completely compatible. Personally, I'd be unimpressed if you sent me a document with straight quotes. – Auspex Jun 06 '19 at 13:36
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    @Auspex - I think you're right about which quotes are technically the correct ones. But they aren't the correct ones “because Microsoft Word has always done that.” – J.R. Jun 07 '19 at 21:08
  • Straight quotes exist because there's wasn't a pressing need to distinguish between left and right quotes in early character sets like ASCII, and available code points were limited. For actually producing documents, proper quotation marks should always be used. – chepner Jun 08 '19 at 23:46
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    @J.R. No, they're not "correct English" because Microsoft has always used them. But they are the correct quotes for OpenOffice because Microsoft has always done that. "Technically", I said, not "grammatically". OpenOffice would have used Emoticons if that's what MS Office did! – Auspex Jun 11 '19 at 13:04

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I'd argue that quotation marks like “ ” are the ordinary ones, and quotation marks like " " are the strange ones. :) But if you prefer typewriter-style quotation marks, that's fine.

According to the OpenOffice wiki, you can change this behavior by opening the AutoCorrect options, clicking the “Localized Options” tab, and un-checking the “Replace” option in the “Double quotes” section.

For a screenshot, see: AOO AutoCorrect LocalizedOptions

Theraot
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Tanner Swett
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    I for one really appreciate it when writers use the correct quotation marks for their language. – Tomáš Zato Jun 06 '19 at 12:20
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    This feature sucks for technical documentation where most interfaces don't recognize the "ordinary" (<-- argh, straight quotes) ones. I hate copying a block of code and then getting numerous errors due to the quote type. – Hannover Fist Jun 06 '19 at 21:38
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    @HannoverFist: Back when I used a classic Macintosh (1988 through 1996ish) I simply typed typographic quotes using, if memory serves, option-shift-leftbracket and option-shift-rightbracket. It annoys me that Windows has no keyboard options as nice as what Apple did do in the 30 years ago. – supercat Jun 06 '19 at 22:48
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    @HannoverFist Unfortunately, this will always be a bit of a holy war between writers and programmers. I can't tell you the number of times an elusive bug has been traced to using the wrong kind of quotes in a data file (I've also seen people use two single quotes instead of one double, another source of frustration), that or em-dashes instead of hyphens, etc. – Darrel Hoffman Jun 07 '19 at 15:44
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    @DarrelHoffman: The correct quote marks in my language „look like this“, so people occassionally use two commas as a substitute. Seeing ,,this'' in official, MS Word-written documents always makes me cringe. (They could have written "this" and it would have been autocorrected by Word, but no…) – user1686 Jun 08 '19 at 10:52
  • Once upon a time, these things were called smart quotes, an epithet I never really appreciated. – Joe Jun 13 '19 at 05:48
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You need to go to Tools - Autocorrect - Autocorrect Options - Localised Options. There you can pick the kind of double quotes and single quotes you like. (Source. Note the source tries to do the exact opposite - get the curly quotation marks. Shouldn't make a difference though.)

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Galastel supports GoFundMonica
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In English, the “ordinary” quotes are the “upper 66” quotes for opening and the “upper 99” quotes for ending a quotation. In other languages, it's often “lower 66” for opening quotes, or «quotation marks» or »quotation marks« (French and German). The straight quotes are not correct in any language I know of; they have been invented for programmers. (They are called 66 and 99 quotes because that's what they look like really magnified).

PS. The question was: "Why am I getting a strange double quote". That is answered: You are getting what you believe are strange characters because they are the correct characters.

gnasher729
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    This looks more like a comment; it certainly isn't answering the question (how to change the editor's behaviour). – Toby Speight Jun 06 '19 at 09:37
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    I think the straight quotes have their origin in typewriters actually: no two buttons for 66 and 99 quotes, no software to take care of the issue. – Galastel supports GoFundMonica Jun 06 '19 at 09:40
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review – Galastel supports GoFundMonica Jun 06 '19 at 10:56
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    I don't understand the "off-topic" comments. OP misunderstands which quotes are correct, this answer corrects them. That is a much better answer than "how to use Open Office", which really belongs on the Open Office help forums rather than here. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jun 06 '19 at 14:07
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    In a way, this answer is a frame challenge (which is allowed) but it doesn't meet that threshold. In many places curly quotes are the norm and the OP is indeed wrong about that. But the question is how to toggle the type of quote from within a particular software program. Note my slight frame challenge there. "How to toggle" is neutral to which is the "right" form. It's possible to answer the question without sharing the OP's views on quote marks. – Cyn Jun 06 '19 at 14:59
  • @Galastel - But do you know that? Seems like they would be quite useful in hand-set mechanical block printing too. Making open quotes and close quotes different glyphs would increase the amount of glyphs the setters have to deal with. When that was done by hand, that would be an unnecessary amount of extra manual labor for a very small improvement in style. – T.E.D. Jun 06 '19 at 18:27
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    @Galastel - FWIW: I just examined some old images of Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette from the early 1700's and found 1) Quotation marks are surprisingly rare 2) He did in fact use different open and close quotations. – T.E.D. Jun 06 '19 at 18:37
  • @T.E.D. I don't know that. Hence "I think". ;) I do have corroborating evidence, like having seen typewriters. But as for block printing, they had dedicated glyphs for 'fi' 'fl' and quite a few other ligatures. If that wasn't considered "unnecessary amount of extra manual labour", not to mention the cost of having and storing additional glyphs, then I don't see why quotation marks would be treated differently. – Galastel supports GoFundMonica Jun 06 '19 at 18:52
  • And some languages write quotes “like this„ – Chronocidal Jun 07 '19 at 15:25
  • 'In other languages, it's often “lower 66” for opening quotes' Are you sure about that? German uses lower-99, upper-66 for open and close, respectively (or >>inward-pointing guillemets<<). – David Richerby Jun 07 '19 at 15:29
  • I think programmers would love to have had distinguishable left and right quotes (or even better, both straight and curly quotes; there's always a dearth of available delimiters). Straight quotes exist because early character-set designers (and even earlier typewriter keyboard designers) deemed there were better uses for the slots that distinct quotes would have occupied. – chepner Jun 08 '19 at 23:51