How to Type Quotes, Apostrophes, & Primes
Avoid the look
of an amateur by properly using typographer’s quotation marks (curly
quotes) and apostrophes and primes in your desktop published documents.
Here's How:
1. Don't use the '
and ' (Shift + ') marks on your keyboard for proper quotations and apostrophes
[ ‘ ’ “ ” ].
2. On a Mac, use Option+] and Shift+Option+] for the left (open) and right (closed)
single quotes.
3. On a Mac, use Option+[ and Shift+Option+[ for the left and right double quotes.
4. For Windows, use ALT+0145 and ALT+0146 for the left and right single quotes.
5. For Windows, use ALT+0147 and ALT+0148 for the left and right double quotes.
6. In HTML code the
characters as ‘
for ‘ and ’ for ’ and “ for “ and ” for ”
7. Called primes, use the upright tick mark ' for feet and minutes and ' for inches and seconds as in 1'6' (1
foot, 6 inches) or 30'15' (30 minutes, 15 seconds).
Tips:
1. Many programs
offer an option to automatically (as you type or on demand) convert all ' and '
marks to typographer’s quotation marks. Use it to speed up the task but
be careful about converting primes used to designate measurements.
2. Oversized curly
quotes can add interest to pull-quotes in your design.
3. When using the
ALT keystrokes in Windows, use the keypad not the row of numbers above the
alphabet and be sure Num Lock is turned ON.
How to Create and Use Dashes and Hyphens
One mark of
professionally set type is the use of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes. Each
is a different size and has its own proper usage.
Here's How:
1. The size of the
en and em dashes is roughly equivalent to the width of the lowercase n and m,
respectively, for the typeface in which they are used.
2. The en dash
(–) is primarily for showing duration or range as in 9:00–5:00 or
112–600 or March 15–31.
3. The em dash
(—) is the proper dash to use in place of single or double hyphens as
punctuation. Similar to a parenthetical phrase (like this) the em dash sets
apart clauses in a sentence.
4. The hyphen is for
hyphenating words and to separate characters in a phone number (123-555-0123).
5. Create an en dash
with Option-hyphen (Mac) or Alt-0150 (Windows).
6. Create an em dash
with Shift-Option-hyphen (Mac) or Alt-0151 (Windows).
7. Create an en dash
in HTML with – (ampersand pound sign 0150 semi-colon).
8. Create an em dash
in HTML with — (ampersand pound sign 0151 semi-colon).
Tips:
1. Sometimes the en
and em dashes for a typeface are too small, large, or poorly spaced to be
visually pleasing. Manually reducing or kerning them can improve their
appearance.
2. A hyphen is
usually shorter and thicker than the en dash. - – —
From http://desktoppub.about.com/library/howto/bl_httype.htm