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.