How to type Left Double Quote
To type Left Double Quote (“), press Alt + 0147 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or press Option + [ on Mac, or write “ in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+201C directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 201c on Linux, or 201c then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Left Double Quotation Mark
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+201C
- Windows
- Alt + 0147
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 0147 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | Option + [ | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | “ | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+201C | LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK |
Symbols related to Left Double Quote
The Unicode code chart points from “ to ", and the rest are filed under quotation, smart and quote in CLDR, the keyword list Unicode publishes alongside the names.
Other punctuation symbols
“ lives in the General Punctuation block (U+2000-U+206F), dashes, quotation marks, spaces and reference marks used across languages. Within Unicode it is classified as Pi, an opening quotation mark. Direction-aware quotes distinguish open from close.
What Left Double Quote is used for
“ belongs in prose rather than in an equation. LaTeX writes it ``, a text command, and there is no maths command for it at all: it is a sign that gets written down, not an operator that acts on anything. Putting it inside $...$ is how it comes out looking wrong.
Unicode publishes a second list of names for “ in CLDR, the keywords its own search data offers rather than the formal name, and they are left quotation mark and smart. Those words are what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Left Double Quote is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches them as well as the Unicode name.
What Unicode says about Left Double Quote
The standard recognises “ under another name as well: double turned comma quotation mark. That is a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why it turns up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
Unicode annotates “ directly. Against U+201C the code chart carries the note “This is the preferred character (as opposed to 201F)”. That is the standard saying what the character is for, rather than an inference from its name.
The code chart points from “ to Quotation Mark, heavy double turned comma quotation mark ornament (U+275D) and reversed double prime quotation mark (U+301D). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Left Double Quote looks nearly right but not quite.
How Left Double Quote behaves in software
“ is East Asian Ambiguous: one column in a Western locale and two in a CJK one. That is why a table that lines up on your machine can break on somebody else's, with no change to the text at all. It carries no direction of its own, so in a line that mixes English with Arabic or Hebrew it takes the direction of the text around it rather than forcing one.
Every way to write Left Double Quote
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+201C |
| Decimal | 8220 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 80 9C |
| UTF-16 bytes | 20 1C |
| HTML entity | “ |
| HTML numeric | “ or “ |
| CSS | \201C |
| JavaScript | \u201C |
| Python | \u201C |
| URL-encoded | %E2%80%9C |
| LaTeX, in prose | `` |
| SVG | 201C.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If “ arrives as “
Its three UTF-8 bytes E2 80 9C are being read one at a time as Windows-1252. The text is undamaged; the reader has to be told it is UTF-8.