25.5 Quotation Marks
One common way to quote is the typewriter convention, which quotes
using straight apostrophes ‘ 'like this'’ or double-quotes ‘ "like this"’. Another common way is the curved quote convention, which uses
left and right single or double quotation marks ‘like this’ or
“like this” 11. In text files, typewriter quotes are simple and
portable; curved quotes are less ambiguous and typically look nicer.
Electric Quote mode makes it easier to type curved quotes. As you
type characters it optionally converts ` to ‘, ' to ’,
`` to “, and '' to ”. It’s possible to change the
default quotes listed above, by customizing the variable
electric-quote-chars, a list of four characters, where the
items correspond to the left single quote, the right single quote, the
left double quote and the right double quote, respectively, whose
default value is '(?‘ ?’ ?“ ?”).
You can customize the behavior of Electric Quote mode by customizing
variables that control where it is active. It is active in text
paragraphs if electric-quote-paragraph is non- nil, in
programming-language comments if electric-quote-comment is
non- nil, and in programming-language strings if
electric-quote-string is non- nil. The default is
nil for electric-quote-string and t for the other
variables.
You can also set the option electric-quote-replace-double to
a non- nil value. Then, typing " insert an appropriate
curved double quote depending on context: “ at the beginning of
the buffer or after a line break, whitespace, opening parenthesis, or
quote character, and ” otherwise.
Electric Quote mode is disabled by default. To toggle it in a
single buffer, use M-x electric-quote-local-mode.
To toggle it globally, type
M-x electric-quote-mode. To suppress it for a single use,
type C-q ` or C-q ' instead of ` or '. To
insert a curved quote even when Electric Quote is disabled or
inactive, you can type C-x 8 [ for ‘, C-x 8 ] for
’, C-x 8 { for “, and C-x 8 } for ”.
See Inserting Text. Note that the value of
electric-quote-chars does not affect these keybindings, they
are not keybindings of electric-quote-mode but bound in
global-map.
Footnotes
(11)
The curved single quote characters are U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK and U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK; the curved double quotes are U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK and U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK. On text terminals which cannot display these characters, the Info reader might show them as the typewriter ASCII quote characters.