Word Auto-correct and contractive apostrophes

I use Word's auto-correct function a lot, now having the shortcut in my quick access toolbar and adding my typically mistyped words. This little function improves my keyboarding speed no end. However, I have had an interesting problem with it for quite a while: when I add an auto-correct with a contractive apostrophe in it, it won't auto-correct. The correct adds to the list, but the next time the same error is keyed, despite being in the list, it won't auto-correct.

Recently I had five minutes alongside the error recurring, and went looking for why this particular auto-correct won't work. And - according to Brad Yundt - "problem is associated with the conversion of a straight quote character to a curly quote. The AutoCorrect is trying to work before the conversion from straight quote to curly quote--but the AutoCorrect entry for the contraction includes a curly quote. As a result, there is no match" (Microsoft Community, 21 March 2015).

The problem is that straight quotation marks get changed to smart ones, and auto-correct can't 'see' a match. That results in auto-correct not being able to process any contraction corrects: even if we go through the AutoCorrect menu and untick the "AutoFormat as You Type" item, "Straight quotation marks" with "Smart quotation marks", it doesn't work. It is, effectively, a Word bug.

At this stage, the only auto-correct answer is avoid contractions.

But hey: the problem has only been known for five years. No rush for a fix :-)


Sam

• Reference: Microsoft Community (21 March 2015). Autocorrect doesn't work with contractions? Retrieved from https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/autocorrect-doesnt-work-with-contractions/bbc19af2-d09b-407f-97bb-760610f3eef3?page=1