How do I tell Word, which characters are to be used as typographic quote?

Question

I started writing a document in MS-Word 2013, an later continued on another machine which has MS-Word 2019 installed. I've set the option to replace double quotes with typographic quotes.

In Word 2013, when I type "some text" the double quotes are replaced as „some text“ („ is 0x84, “ is 0x93), but in Word 2019 the same text looks this way «some text» (« is 0xab, » is 0xbb).

How does Word decide which set characters to use as "typographic quotes"?

Edit 1 I have verified that both computers are running Windows 10 22H2 with all language and cultural specifics set to "German (Swiss)".

... and I believe that the document language normally defaults to the system language. My guess is that the Word2013 machine is set for German, and the Word2019 machine for French. — Jeff Zeitlin, Feb 09 '23 at 17:35
However, you *can* make Word use the straight quote, ' :https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/switch-quickly-between-words-smart-quotes-and-straight-quotes/ — DrMoishe Pippik, Feb 09 '23 at 18:01
@JeffZeitlin: Isn't the dosument language part of the document? It was the very same docx file that I have on a USB stick. And no, both machines are set as (Swiss) German. — phunsoft, Feb 09 '23 at 20:15
@DrMoishePippik: Yes, I know I can disbale the automatic replacement of strait quotes with typographic quotes. I explicitly want this feature but the typographic quotes should be consistenly used. — phunsoft, Feb 09 '23 at 20:17
@phunsoft - Yes, the document language normally "travels" with the document - but you're also crossing between different versions of Word (2013 and 2019), and historically, all bets are off when you do that, especially when you also go backward (2019 to 2013). It's not _supposed_ to be an issue if you're using the .DOCX format, but... Microsoft. — Jeff Zeitlin, Feb 10 '23 at 11:42
@phunsoft - and in fact that might be why they differ - if 2013 erroneously assumed that DE-CH and FR-CH used the same typographic quotes, and embedded "magic" in the file that 2019 interprets as FR-CH, you might see the effect that you're describing. — Jeff Zeitlin, Feb 10 '23 at 11:47
@JeffZeitlin I also wondered whether .docx XML encoding was storing the fact that these quotation marks were entered as straight quotes, but the XML shows no such constructs. The marks are stored as is, with the usual language/locale markers for the "Run" that contains them. I did a similar experiment as in phunSoft's Answer and had the same result as him in Word 2013 with German (Swiss), re-opened that document in Word 365 (v 2301 Build 16.0.16026.20162) and the characters did not change. But new quotation marks entered there are the chevrons (I.e the wrong ones, AIUI). — jonsson, Feb 10 '23 at 17:34
@jonsson To add to your findings: Word-2019 did not find the "wrong" quotes from Word-2013 when searching for `"`. It only finds the guillemets `«`, and `»`. — phunsoft, Feb 11 '23 at 21:51

phunsoft · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-11T21:43:55.333

Preamble

Based on comments to my question, I've done some experiments in MS-Word 2019. This answer documents the result.

Edit 1

I've done the same test with MS-Word 2013 now. Differences see below.

Edit 2

I've found an interesting article aboutn quotation marks on Wikipedia. See references below.

Typographical Quotes by Document Langnage

The document language, more precisely the language of the text passage where the double qoutes are type, determines what characters are used as typographical quotes.

Text marked as "German (Germany)"

Opening and closing simple double quotes are replaced with low double quote („ - HTML &bdquo; - 0x84), and left double quote (“ - HTML “ - 0x93).

"Hello" becomes „Hello“

Text marked as "German (Switzeland)" - MS-Word 2013

Opening and closing simple double quotes are replaced with low double quote („ - HTML &bdquo; - 0x84), and left double quote (“ - HTML “ - 0x93).

"Hello" becomes „Hello“

Text marked as "German (Switzeland)" - MS-Word 2019

Opening and closing simple double quotes are replaced with left double guillemet (« - HTML « - 0xab), and right double guillemet (» - HTML » - 0xbb).

"Hello" becomes «Hello»

Text marked as "French (Switzerland)" or "French (France)"

Opening and closing simple double quotes are replaced with left double guillemet plus one space (« - HTML « - 0xab), and right double guillemet plus one space (» - HTML » - 0xbb).

"Hello" becomes « Hello »

Text marked as "English (United States)" or "English (United Kingdom)"

Opening and closing simple double quotes are replaced with left double quote (“ - HTML “ - 0x93), and right double quote (” - HTML ” - 0x94).

"Hello" becomes “Hello”

References

I found the following web pages explaining the different types of "double quotes":

Article "Quotation mark" on Wikipedia
Typographic Tips: Apostrophes & Quotation Marks
An- und Abführungszeichen und Guillemets This page is availabe in German, only.

For what it's worth, my understanding of the 'normal' pattern for typographical quotes amounts to "Word 2019 gets DE-CH wrong" - DE-CH should use the same quotes as DE-DE. I'm also not convinced that the FR-* results are correct; I don't think the extra spaces should be there (that is, `"Bonjour"` should result in `«Bonjour»` rather than `« Bonjour »`). — Jeff Zeitlin, Feb 10 '23 at 17:49
You can use character styles to set the language setting for particular text. See my article on this https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/using-styles-for-proofing-language-settings/0a1bbf21-eaac-4044-afe6-253bfc47d65f. — Charles Kenyon, Feb 10 '23 at 21:06
@JeffZeitlin According to the Wikipedia article ["Quotation mark"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark), Word 2019 seems to be doing it right for de_CH and French, which seems to be using a small nonbreaking space. — phunsoft, Feb 11 '23 at 21:47

Charles Kenyon · Answer 2 · 2023-02-10T21:03:39.857

The language involved is the proofing language applied to the text.

This is character-level formatting, not document-, not application-, and not system-level. You can set it for individual quotation marks, but doing so is tedious.

You could use the non-curly quotes, then when the document is complete:

Turn off the AutoFormat As You Type option to replace quote marks with curly quotes
Use Replace to find every " mark and replace it with the same mark formatted to be the language that uses the quotation mark you want. To get to this, you click on "More" in the Replace dialog and go to Format > Language.
Use AutoFormat (not AutoFormat As You Type) with the setting to change to curly quotes. You can add the button to run AutoFormat to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Turn back on your AutoFormat As You Type option for quotation marks

Here is my page on Modifying the QAT.

Here are screenshots of the options for AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type

AutoFormat Options Dialog

AutoFormat As You Type Options Dialog

These are similar and easily confused. The AutoFormat options only do anything when the AutoFormat command is used as with a button on the QAT. The AutoFormat As You Type Options work as you type, but do not act on pasted text, only typed text.