In case you’re not familiar with the term “smart quotes,” I found this handy visual aid:
I suppose this is a matter of taste, but in my experience agents and editors like to see smart quotes in a manuscript. They just look more elegant, more professions, more… smart.
That said, you can easily set Scrivener to use either. Just go to Edit -> Substitutions -> Smart Quotes. Check it if you want your quotes smart, uncheck it if you don’t.
Whole Document Changes
At some point in my editing, I realized I had some sections of my manuscript that used straight quotes and some that used smart. I suspect this was a remnant of having uploaded my project to Scrivener when it was half done.
But no worries. If you want to make sure your whole document is using your preferred quotes, just go to Edit -> Transformations -> Convert Quotes to Smart Quotes (or Straight Quotes).
Easy as pie. Don’t you wish everything is life could be this simple?
Woohoo. Thank you! Needed exactly this tip.
This is an FYI so no one tries “select all” or more than one text (scene) at a time – Transformation does NOT work. In fact, in multiple selections it’s grayed out and not accessible. The same is true of chapter selection if you have multiple scenes. Transformation for quotes only works on what’s up in the editor screen.
Do NOT try a search and replace if you want curly quotes because it will turn them all one way or the other and that’s a scene by scene fix as well. Don’t ask me how I know that.
Great tip. Thanks Phil!
Thanks April. The >Edit >Transformations route worked. I did have to open every chapter and click into the text, but that only took about five minutes for my whole manuscript.
Oh, good, I’m glad it worked out.
The only way I’ve been able to do this is by selecting text, then using the Transformation menu item. But if all your scenes are separated into different files and folders, is there a way to transform your entire project without opening up every file and selecting all the text? I tried just selecting the file or group of files, but that didn’t work.
Hi, Michael, I’m not sure how this works. I tend to keep all my documents grouped together, so I don’t have to worry about file organization getting in the way. Sorry I’m not more help. Good luck with it, and maybe, when you find the solution, you could share it here for anyone who has the same trouble in the future.
I have a very large document and it only work on a few quotes.
You will want to make sure you have the entire document selected.
How do you select whole document if it is in lots of chapters and sections?
You can either click on click on the drop-down folder at the top of the binder (it usually says “manuscript” unless you’ve changed it), or click on the top file then hold down shift and click on the bottom file. That should select them all.
Yay! This explains how to convert or transform straight quotes to smart (curly) quotes and you did it in the most simple, straight forward way. Thank you so much!!!
Any time!
I love you for this article! Thank you.
You’re welcome.