: Why am I getting a strange double quote (“) in Open Office instead of the ordinary one (")? Why am I getting a strange double quote (“) in Open Office instead of the ordinary one (")?

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In English, the “ordinary” quotes are the “upper 66” quotes for opening and the “upper 99” quotes for ending a quotation. In other languages, it's often “lower 66” for opening quotes, or «quotation marks» or »quotation marks« (French and German). The straight quotes are not correct in any language I know of; they have been invented for programmers. (They are called 66 and 99 quotes because that's what they look like really magnified).

PS. The question was: "Why am I getting a strange double quote". That is answered: You are getting what you believe are strange characters because they are the correct characters.

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You need to go to Tools - Autocorrect - Autocorrect Options - Localised Options. There you can pick the kind of double quotes and single quotes you like. (Source. Note the source tries to do the exact opposite - get the curly quotation marks. Shouldn't make a difference though.)

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I'd argue that quotation marks like “ ” are the ordinary ones, and quotation marks like " " are the strange ones. :) But if you prefer typewriter-style quotation marks, that's fine.

According to the OpenOffice wiki, you can change this behavior by opening the AutoCorrect options, clicking the “Localized Options” tab, and un-checking the “Replace” option in the “Double quotes” section.

For a screenshot, see:

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