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HOWTO: Fix extra apostrophes appearing when using Windows Live Mail and European Latin keyboard

NOTE: This archived documentation has not been updated recently and may contain information that is no longer relevant

Symptoms

When using Windows Live Mail with the European Latin keyboard, you may find extra apostrophes appearing when trying to type words such as café. This would appear as caf'é. Similarly, typing a Hungarian word such as osi would appear as "osi.

Note: similar symptoms may also appear with some other keyboard layouts that use the quote keys and these instructions should resolve the problem for these other keyboard layouts in the same way.

Background

This issue occurs because Windows Live Mail dynamically converts "straight quotes" into “smart quotes” when you type them. This issue is exacerbated because pressing backspace after typing the quote character restores the straight quote, rather than deleting the character you just typed.

Resolution

To prevent this behaviour, you need to turn off smart quotes in Windows Live Mail. First, close Windows Live Mail (you need to close the icon in the system tray as well), then follow the steps below:

1. Click Start, type regedit and press ENTER.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Compose\Preferences\PostEditor\Autoreplace.
3. If an entry named SmartQuotes does not exist, select Edit > New > DWORD Value, call this new entry SmartQuotes, and press ENTER.
4. Right-click on the entry SmartQuotes, and select Modify.
5. Enter the value to 0 and click OK.
6. Close Registry Editor.

Applies to:

• Keyman Desktop Light 7.0
• Keyman Desktop Professional 7.0