Straight quotes?

Question

How do I get a straight quote instead of curly quotes? I’m not inside verb or listing or any other special environments, and I’m not using XeLaTeX or anything—just normal LaTeX. I don’t want to change all quotes, just get the occasional straight quote. For example, I’d like a way to get something like this in the TeX:

... some examples of these glyphs are curly quotes (``''),
straight quotes ('"), and angled quotes ($'$$"$) ...

to look like this in the output:

... some examples of these glyphs are curly quotes (“”),
straight quotes ('"), and angled quotes (′″) ...

As I’m using an academic-publisher-provided template that does its own required font setup, I’m extremely wary of changing fonts or font encodings. I think the template uses the times package, and the formatting instructions say all fonts must be Type 1.

Answer 1

(Minor update, April 2022: loading the textcomp package to access the glyph generated by \textquotesingle is not necessary if the vintage of your TeX distribution is more recent than 2019.)

You write

I ... just [want to] get the occasional straight quote.

The typographically correct marks for "feet" and "inches" are not (single or double, resp.) straight quote marks, but angled quote marks. These may be produced in "normal LaTeX" via $'$ and $''$, resp.

Addendum, prompted by the OP's comment that interest lies only in "straight" (vertical) quotes. In addition to the "single-quote" command \textquotesingle (requires loading the textcomp package -- if the vintage of your TeX distribution is older than 2020), there's also the \textquotedbl macro, which is available as long as a font encoding other than the original TeX font encoding (aka OT1) is used.

Here, then, is a quick MWE. Note that the text font is TNR (Times New Roman). If your publisher wants to use a font encoding other than T1 -- which is what I use in the MWE -- that's no problem at all, as long as your publisher's template doesn't impose OT1...

\documentclass{article}
% access \textquotedbl:
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}  
% access \textquotesingle:
  \usepackage{textcomp} % not needed for TeX vintages more recent than 2019)   
% load "Times New Roman" text font:
  \usepackage{mathptmx} % (note: the "times" package is obsolete!)

\begin{document}
He exclaimed, \textquotedbl Hello,  
\textquotesingle Stranger\textquotesingle.\textquotedbl
\end{document}

---

Second Addendum, to address a late comment by @FlashSheridan, who claims that

\textquotesingle (with or without textcomp) produces a curly closing quote, not the straight quote I need for a short C fragment.

This claim simply cannot be correct in general. As \textquotesingle is defined in the textcomp package but not the LaTeX kernel, \textquotesingle without textcomp produces an error message, not a curly closing quote. (Update April 2022: This paragraph is irrelevant if your TeX distribution is more recent than 2019.)

The following screenshots (first for Latin Modern, then for Times Roman) demonstrate conclusively that \textquotesingle does produce a straight vertical quote. In contrast, \textsf{'} does not produce a straight vertical quote -- unless, of course, some sans-serif font with straight single quote glyphs has been loaded.

Finally, the code to produce the preceding screenshots:

\documentclass[border=1pt,preview]{standalone}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}  % for \textquotesingle macro
\usepackage{mathptmx}  % or: lmodern
\begin{document}
Times Roman

\verb+\textquotesingle+: \textquotesingle

\verb+\textsf{'}+: \textsf{'}
\end{document}

Answer 2

You can use \textquotesingle from the textcomp package:

\usepackage{textcomp}
....
``The lot is 25\textquotesingle wide,'' the realtor said.

There is also a \textquotedbl for double quotes in the base LaTeX package. \textquotedbl needs a \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} in the preamble, which you should be doing anyway although it can cause weird font trouble. It will be fine with times though.

Answer 3

For LuaLaTeX users, this can be done very easily in the package luaquotes! (Disclaimer: I am the developer of the package)

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{luaquotes}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Libertinus Serif}  
\begin{document}
\dumbquotes
\addfontfeature{RawFeature=+qtbye}
    "I heard John say, 'Hi'. It was nice"
\end{document}

Answer 4

\char13

Pakin writes:

Outside of verbatim, you can use \char18 and \char13 to get the modified quote characters. (The former is actually a grave accent.)

Scott Pakin, "ASCII and Latin 1 quick reference" in The Comprehensive LATEX Symbol List.

Answer 5

If the single quote or your double quote changes automatically try putting them inside textnormal like: \textnormal{"Hello"}