Disable Smart Quotes in WordPress

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Vinish Kapoor is a seasoned software development professional and a fervent enthusiast of artificial intelligence (AI). His impressive career spans over 20 years, marked by a relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence in the field of information technology. As an Oracle ACE, Vinish has distinguished himself as a leading expert in Oracle technologies, a title awarded to individuals who have demonstrated their deep commitment, leadership, and expertise in the Oracle community.

To disable smart quotes in WordPress, you can use add_filter('run_wptexturize', '__return_false'); in your functions.php file. But in this tutorial, I will teach you how you can create a WordPress plugin and upload it to the plugin directory to disable entirely smart/curly quotes for your WordPress site.

I recommend creating a plugin instead of adding a line in functions.php because you may lose the added code on your next theme update if you are not using the child theme. Below are the steps to create a plugin.

Create a Plugin in WordPress to Disable Smart Quotes

Create the following PHP file in a text editor and give the name disable-smart-quotes.php:

disable-smart-quotes.php

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Disable Smart Quotes
Plugin URI:
Description: Disable smart quotes entirely for your WordPress site.
Version: 2.0
Author: Vinish Kapoor
Author URI: https://vinish.ai
*/
add_filter('run_wptexturize', '__return_false');
?>

Create a New Directory under wp-contents > plugins

After that, connect to your WordPress site FTP account and go to wp-contents > plugins folder and create a directory dsq.

Upload the disable-smart-quotes.php file

Now upload the disable-smart-quotes.php file from your computer to the wp-contents > plugins > dsq folder.

Active the Plugin in WordPress

Now come back to your WordPress and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins.

There you will find your newly created Disable Smart Quotes plugin. Now click on the Active link to activate the plugin.

There you go. Your WordPress website will now use only straight quotes instead of smart/curly quotes.

Reference: Disabling wptexturize() in WordPress