Smart Quote Converter AI & Writing
Convert curly quotes, dashes and ellipses to plain ASCII, or back the other way.
Smart Quote Converter is a free online tool that convert curly quotes, dashes and ellipses to plain ASCII, or back the other way. It runs entirely in your web browser using plain JavaScript, so files are processed on your own device and never uploaded to a server. There is no sign-up, no file size limit imposed by the site, no watermark and no paid tier.
- Price
- Free: no account, no quota, no watermark
- Category
- AI & Writing
- Where it runs
- In your browser, on your device
- Files uploaded
- None
- Technology
- plain JavaScript
- Settings
- 3
- Works offline
- Yes, after the first visit
About Smart Quote Converter
Curly quotes are correct typography and a recurring source of bugs. They break CSV parsing, invalidate JSON, turn a working command into a failing one when pasted into a terminal, and silently corrupt a URL. Going the other way, the rule that word processors get wrong is the leading apostrophe: ’twas, ’90s and rock ’n’ roll all take a closing curly quote because the apostrophe marks an elision, not an opening quotation.
How to use it
- Paste the text you want to run through smart quote converter.
- Set direction, include dashes and include ellipses.
The 3 settings
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Choose from 2: Curly → straight (ASCII), Straight → curly (typographic). | Curly → straight (ASCII) |
| Include dashes | On or off. On by default. | On |
| Include ellipses | On or off. On by default. | On |
Under the hood
| Runs on | plain JavaScript: runs the whole thing |
| Controls | Direction, Include dashes, Include ellipses |
Questions
Why did my code stop working after pasting from a document?
Almost certainly smart quotes. A word processor silently converted your straight quotes to curly ones, and no programming language accepts them as string delimiters. The error is usually a confusing syntax complaint rather than anything mentioning quotes.
Which direction should I use?
Straighten for anything a machine reads: code, CSV, JSON, config, URLs, terminal commands. Curl for anything a person reads in a finished document. The mistake is letting an editor decide automatically, because it applies the rule everywhere including inside code samples.
How does it know an apostrophe is an elision?
A short list of the cases that actually occur: decade abbreviations like ’90s, and the handful of contracted words such as ’twas, ’tis, ’n’, ’em and ’cause. Anything else at the start of a word takes an opening quote, which is right far more often than not.