How to Quickly Change Regular Quotations to Block Quotations in a Word Document

Step-by-Step Guide

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   Step 1: Change all of your unformatted quotation marks to formatted quotation marks as shown in my other LifeGuide Hub tutorial: How to Change Straight (Unformatted) Quotation Marks to Smart (Formatted) Quotes;

   You can also see the Find bar in the Home tab at the top of the screen (click the Home tab and then click Find on the right) , If you are on a Mac, these unicodes won't work; instead, copy and paste an opening and closing formatted (smart)quote, with an asterisk in between, like this: "*" They should be formatted marks though, copied from your document.
   
   You still have to have the Use Wildcard box checked for it to work. , If you see a quote that is over the word limit for block quotes in the editorial style that you are following (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.), then you know you have to block them.
   
   Or, if your threshold is the number of lines, then look at the highlighted strings on the screen as you cycle through. ,,,, Name your style Block Quote and click OK. , Each time you get to a quote that needs to be blocked, put it on its own line, remove the quotation marks, go to the Home tab, and click on the Block Quote style that you created.
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   Step 2: Hit Ctrl + F on your keyboard on a PC or Cmd + F on a Mac to open the Find bar.

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   Step 3: If you are on a PC

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   Step 4: search for *This will locate strings of words that fall between an opening smart quote and a closing smart quote.

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   Step 5: As you cycle through by clicking Find Next

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   Step 6: you will see the word count at the bottom-left part of the Word window.

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   Step 7: When you have located a quote that needs to be blocked

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   Step 8: hit Enter to put it on its own line

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   Step 9: delete the opening quotation mark

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    Step 10: delete the closing quotation mar

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    Step 11: and then hit Enter again (the quote should be on its own lines

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    Step 12: separated from other text)

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    Step 13: Indent your quote by using the little triangles on the ruler

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    Step 14: or highlight the quote

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    Step 15: right click

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    Step 16: and choose the Paragraph options to modify as you need per your style.

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    Step 17: Select the formatted block quote with the mouse

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    Step 18: Click on the Home tab

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    Step 19: and then to the right

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    Step 20: where the white style boxes are

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    Step 21: click the down arrow and choose Save Selection as New Style (or in Word 2013 choose Create New Style).

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    Step 22: Continue cycling through with your *search.

Detailed Guide

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