I was trying to write a limerick for OEDILF and I hit a snag.

I want to type the words he is abbreviated to

{apostrophe} e {apostrophe} s

but Word insists on changing my two apostrophes to a pair of opening and closing quotes and nothing I've been able to do seems to stop it. Does anyone know if there's a way to force it to do what I want here?

It doesn't happen for me, but try either of these:

1. Immediately after Word "converts" your text, perform an 'undo', either by the button or by CNTR-Z. That should undo the conversion and revert to what you typed.
2. Or before you type, click on Tools > Autocorrect, and uncheck the box titled "Replace text as you type".

Do either of these work?

Word can just be so infuriating, can't it?

When you type an apostrophe before a word, WORD interprets that as a quote and prints an opening quote mark. Then the next one is a closing mark. So what I do is type two apostrophes and then go back and erase the first one. It's cumbersome, but it works for me. Like this: ‘’e’s ’e’s

Tinman

Click on tools, click on autocorrect, select the tab "autoformat" and deselect the option replace "straight quotes" with "smart quotes". Close the dropdown and that should do the trick.

You don't need to use Word at all. You are just going to copy and paste it into the text box on OEDILF, and you don't want any formatting. It is simpler to use NotePad instead.

Glad to see you two are OK.

Thanks, Cat!

We didn't get much work done today.

A good collection of suggestions. Here are the results.

quote:

Immediately after Word "converts" your text, perform an 'undo', either by the button or by CNTR-Z. That should undo the conversion and revert to what you typed.

does work but produces straight quotes rather than an actual apostophe.

quote:

Or before you type, click on Tools > Autocorrect, and uncheck the box titled "Replace text as you type".

has no effect

quote:

When you type an apostrophe before a word, WORD interprets that as a quote and prints an opening quote mark. Then the next one is a closing mark. So what I do is type two apostrophes and then go back and erase the first one. It's cumbersome, but it works for me. Like this: ‘’e’s ’e’s

as you say, cumbersome but does work.

quote:

Click on tools, click on autocorrect, select the tab "autoformat" and deselect the option replace "straight quotes" with "smart quotes". Close the dropdown and that should do the trick.

smart quotes is the option that gets it wrong, straight quotes works to the extent that it produces straight quotes but not an apostrophe

quote:

You don't need to use Word at all. You are just going to copy and paste it into the text box on OEDILF, and you don't want any formatting. It is simpler to use NotePad instead.

true

Thank you, Cat.

I wasn't in London today although by brother-in-law was at Kings Cross. However, he's OK and managed to get back home by getting to London Bridge whence the trains were still running.