Proper weblog punctuation

The post below gave me plenty of practice in typing real quotation marks ( “  ”  ‘  ’ ) instead of tick marks ( '  " ). If you’d like proper punctuation on your web log, there are a couple of ways to type them.

I used the Microsoft keyboard codes. These require a keyboard with a numeric keypad (the numbers lined up above the alphabetic keys don't work for this), and the Num Lock key must be on. While holding the Alt key down, you type in the four-digit code on the numeric keypad. The codes for single and double quotation marks are these:

• Alt-0145 = ‘
• Alt-0146 = ’
• Alt-0147 = “
• Alt-0148 = ”

Other handy codes are Alt-0150 for an en-dash ( – ) and Alt-0151 for an em-dash ( — ).

If you're handy with HTML, you can code your punctuation.  Here are the HTML codes for some punctuation marks you won’t find on your keyboard:

• &#8211 =  –   (en-dash)
• &#8212 =  —  (em-dash)
• &#8216 =   ‘   (left single quotation mark)
• &#8217 =  ’   (right single quotation mark)
• &#8220 =  “ (left double quotation mark)
• &#8221 =  ”  (right double quotation mark)

To see a complete list of these codes, click here. (Thanks to Mr. Thorne for this tip.)