New project error: defaulting to regular quotes instead of smart quotes

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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1

I have smart quotes enabled for new projects but when I begin a new project as of today, new projects are defaulting to straight quotes instead.

I’ve tried ticking and re-ticking the boxes, closing and reopening the application, but nothing is fixing it. It has never done this before. This has only started happening since the Tahoe 26.0 update. I have tried the 3.45 build but this does not solve the problem.

Is there anything else I can try?

2

I use the Windows version and my suggestion doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but my recollection is that the macOS version can at least change existing straight quotes to smart quotes manually. To do so, select the text with the quotes and go to Edit > Transformations > Convert Quotes to Smart Quotes.

(I probably shouldn’t weigh in on a macOS version issue, but am taking a chance that this is at least a little helpful. In the case of the Windows version, at least, there is a keyboard shortcut available to make these conversions, which can be handy when used with Stream Deck.)

3

On the Mac, the thing to check for in individual projects is in Edit ▸ Substitutions. Make sure there is a tick beside “Smart Quotes”.

But the checkbox should be working fine, I just ran a quick test in a fresh Mac account on 26, with Scrivener 3.4.5, and was able to create new projects with the setting on or off, depending on the state of the checkbox.

You might need to reset your preferences; perhaps something got “stuck” in the system upgrade.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I tried all this before posting. However, whether using a scrivener template or one of my own, even though it says smart quotes are ticked, it is only inserting straight quotes.

6

You could try, as a very basic test, something similar to what I did:

  1. Go into System Settings: Users & Groups, and click the Add User... button.
  2. Just make a standard account, call it ‘tester’ or whatever, it doesn’t matter. we’re just checking to see what macOS 26 + Scrivener all by itself does.
  3. Once you’ve logged in, launch Scrivener and go past all the setup stuff (just use the demo mode if it asks), and create a new project in Scrivener and try typing in some text with quotes.

With factory default settings at both the system and Scrivener levels, that should work. If it still doesn’t work, something is wrong with the Mac installation I suspect. Scrivener itself doesn’t typeset the quotes, and if default settings don’t work I don’t know how to advise further.

If it does work though, you could try simplifying what is going on in your main user account. After logging out of this test account, when you log into your main account, hold down the Shift key directly after entering the password, and keep it held down for the duration of the login process. This will stop all background services and programs from running. Try with nothing but Scrivener and Finder lit up in the Dock.

It’s worth mentioning that typographic punctuation, along with spell checking, has been flaky on the Mac for many years now. You’ll find reports of it turning on and off spontaneously (with no settings adjustments), going back to at least Mac OS X 10.9 (I think that’s about when it started). All such problems remain a mystery of how the Mac works, unfortunately. We’ve tried everything we can do to stay out of its way, which is all we can do.

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I’ve now tried a few things. I have installed 3.5 and Tahoe 26.0.1

Normal typing will give me smart quotes, but using Mac voice control dictation will only give me straight quotes. Due to disability I use voice control almost exclusively.

I went through a few things with Apple this morning including a clean install of the OS, but this changed nothing. The behavior is the same on my laptop. And on a test account on my Mac.

In the end, the guy at Apple said I should simply report all the details to yourselves, now that I reported them to Apple. He said that essentially I have to wait for someone to fix this.