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When typing in feet and inches, the prime ′ and double prime ″ symbols are used, e.g. 5′ 5″. How do I type these characters?

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the ` is officially known as a grave accent – daviesgeek Jul 1 '12 at 2:05
1  
Really? I thought ' and " were feet and inches. – timothymh Jul 1 '12 at 2:06
(With ‘’ and “” for quotes.) – timothymh Jul 1 '12 at 2:06
@davisgeek I think your comment must have been intended for some other question? – Tom Gewecke Jul 1 '12 at 13:10
@timothymh ' and " are "straight" or ascii quotes, the others you mention are "curly". Wikipedia entries for feet and inches explain that prime/double prime is the most correct symbol for these. – Tom Gewecke Jul 1 '12 at 13:15
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3 Answers

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I don't know if it's the easiest way, but here's one way:

In the "International" system preferences, turn on the keyboard layout called "Unicode Hex Input". When you need to type a prime, type commandspace to switch to this keyboard layout, and then hold down option and type 2 0 3 2. For double prime, it's 2 0 3 3.

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The character viewer could help with this as well. – ephsmith Jul 1 '12 at 4:32
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You can also just hit:

for ″
   option [

for ′
   option ]

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On the US keyboard layout, those shortcuts give you quote marks (“ ‘) and not primes. What layout are you using? – Tom Gewecke Jan 17 at 0:14
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Character Palette

´ (prime): 2032

˝ (double-prime): 2033

(thanks to Paul Berkowitz)

Unicode Hex Input Keyboard

´ (prime): option 2 0 3 2

˝ (double-prime): option 2 0 3 3

(thanks to @Ken's answer)

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The keyboard shortcuts are wrong. These give you the acute accent and the double acute accent (00B4,02DD) and not prime and double prime. – Tom Gewecke Mar 14 at 20:55
@TomGewecke care to provide the correct answer? – Noel Mar 15 at 19:53
It's already here in the answer provided by Ken and the comment there. There isn't any keyboard shortcut, you have to use the Unicode Hex layout or Character Viewer. – Tom Gewecke Mar 16 at 0:04
@TomGewecke ah, I see. It was unclear which part was incorrect. Also, it's nice to have a single consolidated correct answer. – Noel Mar 18 at 5:07
Yes, good idea. – Tom Gewecke Mar 18 at 5:11

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