Single and Double Prime Marks

Another problem with letting your computer automatically type the quotation marks for you is that you end up with quotation marks and apostrophes when you really need inch and foot marks.

Wrong: Ryan stands 6’ 2” tall. Right: Ryan stands 62tall.

Now, you might think that you should be typing those ugly typewriter apostrophes and quotation marks for inch and foot marks. Wrong, dear. In excellent typography, feet and inches are represented by single and double prime marks, which are at a slight angle, as shown below.

These are typewriter quote marks: ″ ′

These are double and single prime marks:

If you have the Symbol font on your computer (which you probably do), you can use the prime marks in it:

To type ...

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