Step 5: Use straight quotes in place of curly quotes.
Like bullet points and other special symbols, curly (smart) quotes do not transfer accurately (in fact, they may appear as little rectangles on the recipient's screen). Therefore, replace curly quotes with straight quotes. Here's how:

MS Word 2007

1. Click the Office button in the upper left corner of your MS Word window and click Word Options, found at the bottom of the window.
2. After the Word Options box opens, click the Proofing button in the left column, and click AutoCorrect Options.
3. Click the AutoFormat tab and make sure Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes is not selected.
4. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab and make sure Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes is not selected. Then click OK to exit the AutoCorrect Options box.
5. Click OK to close the Word Options box.
6. Open the Plain Text version of your resume and manually delete and retype each quotation mark in your document (or use the Replace option found in the far right side of your Home toolbar).

MS Word 97-2003

1. Select the text that includes the quotes you want to change.
2. Click Format in your toolbar and select AutoFormat.
3. Click the Options button, and make sure Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes is not selected under both the AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type tabs. Then click OK to exit the AutoFormat box, and your curly quotes will be changed to straight quotes.

Step 6: Rearrange text if necessary.
Do a line-by-line review of your document to make sure there are no odd-looking line wraps, extra spaces, or words scrunched together. Make adjustments accordingly. This may require inserting commas between items that were once in columns and are now in paragraph format because tabs and tables disappeared when the document was converted to Plain Text.