Format dashes and quotation marks in Numbers on Mac
You can use smart quotes to automatically convert quotation marks to curly quotation marks and use smart dashes to convert double hyphens (--) to dashes (—).
Turn smart dashes on or off
Turning smart dashes on or off doesn’t affect existing hyphens and dashes in your spreadsheet, only new text that you type.
Go to the Numbers app
on your Mac.Choose Numbers > Settings (from the Numbers menu at the top of your screen).
Click Auto-Correction at the top of the settings window.
In the Formatting section, select or deselect the “Use smart quotes and dashes” checkbox.
Convert existing double hyphens to dashes
If your spreadsheet uses double hyphens instead of dashes, you can quickly replace them with dashes in the whole spreadsheet or just in specific text.
Go to the Numbers app
on your Mac.Open a spreadsheet.
To apply formatting just to specific text, rather than to all the text in the spreadsheet, select the text.
Choose Edit > Substitutions > Show Substitutions (from the Edit menu at the top of your screen).
In the Substitutions window, select the Smart Dashes checkbox.
Do one of the following:
Replace all dashes in the spreadsheet: Click Replace All.
Replace dashes in only selected text: Click Replace in Selection.
Choose a default quotation mark style
You can specify a quotation mark style for single and double quotation marks in your spreadsheet. The setting applies to all of your Numbers spreadsheets, and only for new text that you type. Existing quotation marks aren’t changed.
Go to the Numbers app
on your Mac.Choose Numbers > Settings (from the Numbers menu at the top of your screen).
Click Auto-Correction at the top of the settings window.
In the Formatting section, select the “Use smart quotes and dashes” checkbox.
Click the pop-up menus for double and single quotes, and choose a style for each.
Change the style of existing quotation marks
You can quickly change the quotation mark style for a whole spreadsheet or just for specific text.
Go to the Numbers app
on your Mac.Open a spreadsheet.
To apply formatting just to specific text, rather than to all the text in the spreadsheet, select the text.
Choose Edit > Substitutions > Show Substitutions (from the Edit menu at the top of your screen).
In the Substitutions window, select the Smart Dashes checkbox.
Click the pop-up menus for double and single quotation marks, and choose a style for each.
Do one of the following:
Replace all dashes in the spreadsheet: Click Replace All.
Replace dashes in only selected text: Click Replace in Selection.