Free Smart Quotes Converter

1. Choose your mode. Select "Straighten" to convert curly/smart quotes to straight ASCII quotes, or "Typeset" to convert straight quotes to typographic curly quotes.

2. Paste your text. Paste or type the text you want to convert into the input box. The tool processes your text instantly as you type.

3. Review the substitution counts. The stats bar shows exactly how many quotes, apostrophes, and dashes were converted, so you can verify the changes before copying.

4. Copy the result. Click the Copy button to copy the converted text to your clipboard. Paste it wherever you need it.

Typography has a rich history of using different punctuation marks for different purposes. In the era of typewriters, a single key served double duty for both opening and closing quotation marks. When digital typesetting arrived, software like Microsoft Word and Google Docs began automatically converting these "dumb quotes" into their typographically correct counterparts. While this produces beautiful text for reading, it can create problems when that text is pasted into code editors, terminals, or systems that expect ASCII characters.

The smart quotes problem. Curly quotes use Unicode code points (U+201C, U+201D for double; U+2018, U+2019 for single) that are distinct from the ASCII straight quote characters (U+0022 and U+0027). When you copy text from a word processor into a code file, these invisible differences can cause syntax errors, broken strings, and hard-to-debug issues. JSON parsers, SQL queries, and shell scripts are particularly sensitive to this distinction. A single curly quote in a JSON file will make the entire file invalid.

Dashes matter too. Similar confusion arises with dashes. The em dash (\u2014) and en dash (\u2013) are distinct Unicode characters that look similar to hyphens but behave differently. An em dash copied from a Word document into a URL, filename, or command-line argument can cause silent failures. This tool converts em dashes to double hyphens (--) and en dashes to regular hyphens (-) in Straighten mode, and reverses the process in Typeset mode.

When to typeset. If you are preparing content for publication\u2014a blog post, newsletter, book manuscript, or marketing copy\u2014typographic quotes and proper em dashes signal attention to detail and professionalism. The Typeset mode converts your plain-text drafts into publication-ready text with proper curly quotes and em dashes, saving you from manually inserting special characters.

Best practice. Write in whatever environment is most comfortable, then use this tool to convert quotes and dashes to match your target format. Developers straighten quotes before pasting into code. Writers and editors typeset quotes before publishing. Either way, the substitution counts let you verify exactly what changed.