Curly quotation marks for quotes

[devonnhr]

Hello,

Can the Microsoft Style Guide team please confirm that for any Microsoft copy that is published as online content (i.e. web pages), writers should not be using curly quotation marks and should defer to straight quotation marks only, even for content that includes quotes? This style guidance brings up the following concerns:

1. Deferring to straight quotation marks conflicts with typography best practices, which call for curly quotation marks to be used for quotes and straight quotation marks (or prime marks) to be used for feet and inches.
2. Chicago Manual of Style also notes that curly quotation marks , not straight quotation marks, should be used to match the surrounding typeface.
3. Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint are set to automatically adjust straight quotation marks to curly. As this is a feature that writers and editors need to manually turn off, it makes it difficult to ensure that only straight quotation marks are used for Microsoft copy that is published online.

Please let me know if there is additional insight or recommendations regarding the style guidance surrounding quotation marks in online content. Thank you!

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Document Details

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• ID: d0153bb7-38b0-cb1e-191a-8184a4c72699
• Version Independent ID: bcbca2af-751d-8977-9eb8-577b9bac289d
• Content: Quotation marks - Microsoft Style Guide
• Content Source: styleguide/punctuation/quotation-marks.md
• Service: microsoft-writing-style-guide
• GitHub Login: @pallep
• Microsoft Alias: pallep