Typography is not just margins, line spacing or tracking—it is also about type setting. Which in this case here means: how to type some special characters. It goes into the field of what letters are used and how. Usually authors don’t know these rules or laws as they wouldn’t have an typography background or follow a design approach.
Here’s a set of rules I’d suggest for every text—no matter how little time is left.
The use of proper apostrophe
'
This is an inch sign, not an apostrophe. It’s a wrong apostrophe; in German: Zollzeichen
"
doppeltes Zollzeichen, Bogensekunde, keine Anführungsstriche, falsche Anführungsstriche
’
correct apostrophe
The use of proper hyphen and proper dash
-
A hyphen is only here for hyphenation (the professional German term is Divis)
–
A dash or in German: Gedankenstrich (the professional German term is Halbgeviertstrich; used in German and Swiss typography)
—
A dash (used in English and American typography)
The use proper quotation marks—called guillemets
«word»
quotation marks in Swiss typography« Alt , on macOS
Alt Gr + X on Windows (Swiss keyboard)
»word«
quotation marks in German typography» Alt Shift , on macOS
Alt Gr + Y on Windows (Swiss keyboard)
„hello“
is not wrong, maybe aesthetically not as nice. It wouldn’t be used in the highest form of typography (books), because the real guillemets are integrating a lot better into the typeface.