Quotation marks symbol: every kind in one place
The standard typographic quotes are four characters: “ (left double quotation mark, U201C) and ” (right double, U201D), ‘ (left single, U2018) and ’ (right single, U2019). Typographers call them curly or smart quotes; the opening ones are shaped like a small 66, the closing ones like a 99. Their exact drawing changes with the font, but the direction is fixed in Unicode, so a pasted “ stays an opening quote whatever font the reader has. British style often calls them inverted commas, and single quotes ‘ ’ are the primary pair in much British publishing.
The rest of the family is the same two shapes moved around. „ and ‚ are the 99 shape dropped to the baseline, the low-9 quotes that open a German, Polish or Czech quotation (people type "bottom quotation mark" to find them). ‟ and ‛ are mirrored 99s set high, rare outside older typesetting, and ⹂ is a low mirrored pair added in Unicode 7.0 for editions of old texts. Guillemets « » and ‹ › are the angled quotes of French, Russian and Swiss typography. 「」 and 『』 are the corner brackets of Japanese and traditional Chinese. The straight " and ' on your keyboard are typewriter leftovers that every other mark here was designed to replace.
Curly quotes vs straight quotes, and which apostrophe to use
Typewriters had room for one quote key, so they used a single straight " for opening and closing and a single ' for the apostrophe and single quotes. Word processors fixed this with smart quotes: you type " and the program swaps in “ or ” depending on whether a space comes before it. That guess is also why pasted text sometimes shows a quote facing the wrong way, usually after a dash or at the start of a line. Use straight quotes only where a computer needs them: in code, a spreadsheet formula, a URL, or a form that rejects curly ones.
The apostrophe in it’s, don’t and O’Neil is officially ’ (right single quotation mark, U2019); the Unicode Standard names it the preferred apostrophe character, and the typewriter ' is its plain fallback. Watch the look-alikes: (acute accent) and (grave accent) are accents, not apostrophes, and ′ (prime) is the mark for feet and minutes, so 5′10″ is a height while 5'10" is the typewriter approximation of one. ʻ is the ʻokina, a letter of Hawaiian as in Hawaiʻi, and ʼ (modifier letter apostrophe) is used in languages where the apostrophe counts as a letter rather than punctuation.
Quotation marks in different languages
English puts “double” quotes first with ‘single’ ones inside in American style, and the reverse in much British publishing. German books open low and close high, „so“, or use reversed guillemets »so«; Swiss German, French, Italian, Russian, Greek and traditional Spanish typography use « guillemets », French with a space inside each mark. Polish and Hungarian open low and close with the 99 shape: „tak”. Russian nests „ “ inside « ». Swedish and Finnish use the closing ” at both ends, ”hej”, while Danish and Norwegian use »så« or „så“.
Japanese writes quotes with 「 and 」 (kagikakko) and uses the hollow 『 』 for a quote inside a quote and for titles; in vertical text they turn into ﹁ ﹂ ﹃ ﹄, and ｢ ｣ are the narrow half-width versions kept from old computer encodings. Traditional Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong also uses 「」, while simplified Chinese uses “ ” in horizontal text. 〝 〞 〟 are the double-prime quotation marks found in East Asian fonts, and 〃 is the ditto mark that repeats the line above in a table. Hebrew ׳ (geresh) and ״ (gershayim) look like quotes but mark abbreviations and numerals, and the Arabic ornate parentheses ﴾ ﴿ frame quoted verses of the Quran.
Fancy quotation marks for quote posts and bios
The heavy ornaments , with their single forms , came into Unicode from the Zapf Dingbats font and read as a big bold quote mark at any size. That makes them the usual choice for a quote graphic, a testimonial, an Instagram caption or a Discord bio: ❝ Stay hungry ❞. are their low forms, and are a heavier sans-serif set added in Unicode 7.0 in 2014; despite their code points they are text characters, not emoji, so they take the colour of your text instead of showing as a picture.
❮ ❯ and ❰ ❱ are heavy angle quotes for the same job in an angular style, and the lighter « » ‹ › double as pointers, which is why they turn up in bullet lists and breadcrumbs. For an aesthetic bio people also wrap a name in 「 」, a title in 『 』, or a line in 〝 〞. Pick one pair and keep it: opening with and closing with ” looks like a mistake, and screen readers announce each mark by name.
How to type quotation marks on the keyboard
Windows, with Num Lock on and the number pad: “ is Alt0147, ” Alt0148, ‘ Alt0145, ’ Alt0146, „ Alt0132, ‚ Alt0130, « Alt0171, » Alt0187, ‹ Alt0139 and › Alt0155. Mac with the US layout: Option[ gives “, OptionShift[ gives ”, Option] gives ‘, OptionShift] gives ’, Option\ gives «, OptionShift\ gives » and OptionShiftW gives „. On a phone, long-press the " or ' key to pick curly quotes and guillemets; the Japanese keyboard has 「」 on its punctuation key.
Word and Google Docs turn a typed " into a curly quote on their own (in Word it is File › Options › Proofing › AutoCorrect › "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes"; CtrlZ right after typing undoes one conversion), and that setting is what to switch off when you write code. In HTML use “ ” ‘ ’ „ « », and CSS can supply a language's pair with q { quotes: "«" "»"; }. If the quotation mark key seems not to work and nothing appears until the next letter, the layout is set to US International, where " and ' are dead keys for accents: press the space bar after the key, or switch back to plain US.
Symboler
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Double and single quotes by style
Each style as a double and a single mark: the curly opening 66 and closing 99 shapes, their low and mirrored forms, the straight typewriter marks and the wide East Asian forms.
Guillemets and angle quotes
The angled quotes of French, Russian and Swiss text, and their heavy ornamental cousins.
Heavy quote ornaments
Bold decorative quotes for quote graphics, captions and bios.
Japanese and Chinese quotes
Corner brackets in horizontal, vertical and half-width forms, and the double-prime quotes of East Asian fonts.
Primes: feet, inches, minutes and seconds
Not quotes, though they look like them: ′ is feet or minutes, ″ inches or seconds.
Apostrophe letters, look-alikes and related marks
Marks that are often typed in place of a quote or apostrophe, quote-like marks of other scripts, and the quote emoji.
How to use them
6 situationsKlik for at kopiereQuotation Mark Symbols combos
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- The word guillemet is a French diminutive of Guillaume, traditionally said to honour the sixteenth-century Paris punchcutter Guillaume Le Bé.
- Curly quotes are older than straight ones: metal type always had separate opening and closing marks, and the single straight " was a typewriter economy that ASCII inherited in 1963. Unicode has carried the full curly set “ ” ‘ ’ „ ‚ since version 1.1 in 1993.
- and ❮ ❯ entered Unicode from Hermann Zapf's ITC Zapf Dingbats font of 1978; their low forms and the sans-serif waited until Unicode 7.0 in 2014.
- The ditto mark 〃 takes its name from the Italian detto, "said", the same root as a dictum: it literally means "as said above".
- In Hebrew, ״ (gershayim) before the last letter turns a string of letters into an abbreviation or a number, so צה״ל is read as an acronym and not as a word.
Ofte stillede spørgsmål
8How do I copy and paste quotation marks?
Click any mark on this page, “ ” ‘ ’ « » 「 」 or , and it is copied; paste it with CtrlV or CmdV. On a phone, long-press where you want it and choose Paste.
What is the quotation marks symbol called?
Unicode names them left and right double quotation mark (“ ”) and left and right single quotation mark (‘ ’). Everyday names are curly quotes, smart quotes, speech marks or, in Britain, inverted commas; « » are guillemets, „ is a low-9 quotation mark, 「」 are kagikakko, and the straight " is simply quotation mark.
How do I type curly quotation marks on the keyboard?
Windows: Alt0147 for “, Alt0148 for ”, Alt0145 for ‘, Alt0146 for ’ on the number pad. Mac: Option[ and OptionShift[ for “ ”, Option] and OptionShift] for ‘ ’. In Word and Google Docs a typed " becomes curly automatically.
What do quotation marks around a word mean?
They mark words that are someone else's: direct speech, a quoted phrase, or a title. Around a single word they often signal irony or doubt, so-called scare quotes, which is the written form of air quotes made with two fingers; writing a “sale” price suggests it is no sale at all.
What is the difference between a quotation mark and an apostrophe?
An apostrophe marks a missing letter or a possessive and is always the single closing shape ’ (don’t, Anna’s). A single quotation mark comes in a pair, opening ‘ and closing ’, around quoted words. On a typewriter keyboard both are the straight ', which is why word processors have to guess.
Why is the quotation mark key on my keyboard not working?
Usually the layout is US International, where " and ' are dead keys that wait to put an accent on the next letter; press the space bar after the key or switch the layout to plain US. If Shift2 gives @ instead of ", the layout is US rather than UK, and the quote sits on the ' key next to Enter.
What are the Japanese quotation marks?
「 and 」, called kagikakko, are the normal Japanese quotes; 『 and 』 (nijū kagikakko) are used for a quote inside a quote and for book and film titles. In vertical writing they appear as ﹁ ﹂ and ﹃ ﹄. Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese use the same brackets.
Which quotation marks does French use?
Guillemets: « and », with a non-breaking space between each mark and the quoted words, « comme ça ». For a quote inside a quote French uses “ ” or, in Switzerland, the single ‹ ›.
