Question: so I am very ameature in google sheets. I am an artist and I am organizing stock. In google sheets I have title, price, medium, sold/not sold, etc... I have print series that go up to 100. for example "hummingbird 1/100" then the next row is
"hummingbird 2/100" the next is
"hummingbird 3/100" and I am trying to create a sequence so I don't have to type it out every row. help please, thank you so much for your time.

Answer: 
I finally found a way to do this and wanted to share it with others who might have the same problem. This answers relies on using the "regular expression" functionality in the Advanced Search. Specifically, it uses so-called "lookbehind" and "lookahead" syntax ([described more fully here](https://writersdiscord.com/using-regex-in-google-docs/#Example_5)).

To replace all the starting quotes, we look for every straight quote that has "whitespace" (space character or newline) immediately *preceding* it, using this regular expression:

```
   (?<=\W|^)(\")

```

Then make sure to cut and paste an actual starting curly quote in the Replace With field. The dialog should look like this:
[![Advanced Search for starting quote](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uyQjq.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uyQjq.png)

Similarly, use the following reg ex to find all the ending quotes. This searches for all straight quotes *followed* by whitespace. (This will only work if you have used the correct grammatical practice of never placing punctuation directly after a closing quote. Hope you listened to your english teacher!)

```
    (\")(?=\W|$)

```

(And, of course, remember to cut&paste a *closing* curly quote in the Replace With field.)
I think I've got it down to something simple enough for me to just remember and not have to look up each time:

1. In Find and Replace, check the box for "**Match using regular expressions**."
2. To find all the starting quotes:

**Find `\"\b` and replace all with `“`**

(This means "a literal quotation mark followed immediately by a word boundary.")
3. Once you've replaced all the starting quotes, the remaining ones should all be ending quotes. So:

**Find `\"` and replace all with `”`**
4. Don't forget single quotes and apostrophes. If you're sure you haven't used any single quotes as quotes, only as apostrophes, you can skip this step. If you may have used some as quotes:

**Find `\B\'\b` and replace all with `‘`**

(This means "a single quote preceded by anything other than a word boundary and followed by a word boundary.")
5. Finally, apostrophes and ending single quotes:

**Find `\'` and replace all with `’`**

There's also an [extension](https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/text_cleaner/103106847686) that claims to do this, but it didn't work for me (it got some but missed a bunch).