so now apparently times new roman 12 pt font normal quotes are "special."

 

i fixed it by adding:

 editor_text = request.form("Editor1")
 editor_text = replace(editor_text,"“","""")
 editor_text = replace(editor_text,"”","""")
 editor_text = replace(editor_text,"’","'")

 

ghetto, but makes up for shortcomings with interactions with word.