Why does Word require space after opening quotation mark?

[Mike Sheehan]

THe Office 2003 version that was loaded on my XPS behaves strangely with
quotation marks. When I press enter an apostophe or a quotation mark, it
doesn't appear until I enter the next character or a space. This is really
bothersome! If I preceed the letter I with a quotation mark, I get a
foreign-looking character -- like this ï or this Ã. What I see are lower and
upper case I's with two dots above them.

 

[Greg Maxey]

Check your language settings. Tools>Language>Set Language

 

[garfield-n-odie]

You probably have an international keyboard layout selected in
Windows. See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306560 "How To
Use the United States-International Keyboard Layout in Windows
XP", except that you want to select the standard U.S. keyboard
instead of the U.S.-International keyboard.