Quotation Mark Differences

[Paul Howarth]

I am getting different Query results depending upon whether I type directly into Access or whether I type first in Word and paste into Access.

Typed Directly into Access Query

Test1: "Hello"

Query Datasheet view shows the word "Hello"

Pasted Into Access Query from Word

Test2: “Hello”

Access adds brackets to what I have pasted and changes my paste to Test2:[“Hello”]
Query Datasheet view Prompts "Enter Parameter Value"

The only difference is that the quotation marks typed directly into Access are completely vertical. The quotation marks pasted into Access from Word are slanted/curvy.


Is this an Access quirk?
Or is there something for this Novice needs to learn?

[Rabbit]

Word will sometimes convert quotation marks to a different character for aesthetic purposes. If you look carefully at the characters, they are not quotation marks but double grave and double acute accent marks. They look similar but are different from quotation marks.

[NeoPa]

Paul Howarth:
Or is there something for this Novice needs to learn?

There you go. As Rabbit says, the characters may look like quotes (') or double-quotes (") but are actually completely different characters. This is one of the main reasons we insist on [code] tags for posting code. These characters show up quite differently in that font.

We also recommend that no-one ever works in Word, or any other word processing package when dealing with code or data. They are particularly badly suited to such work. Use a text editor instead (Notepad will do, but one with macro facilities may be worth your while getting into instead).