Smart Quote Formatter
Convert straight quotes and apostrophes into correct opening and closing curly marks, or straighten them again, with proper handling of contractions, elisions, primes and code.
Last reviewed by the Radiatus Cloud team
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The direction of the mark is the whole problem
A straight apostrophe has one form. A typographic one has two: an opening single quote and a closing one, and the closing form is also the apostrophe. Deciding which to use requires looking at what surrounds the mark. After a letter or a digit it is a closing mark, because it is either an apostrophe or the end of a quotation. At the start of a word it is usually an opening mark, unless the word is an elision such as 'til or '90s, where the apostrophe stands for removed characters and points the other way.
Primes are not quotes
Feet, inches, minutes and seconds use prime and double prime, which lean the opposite way to a closing quote and are distinct characters. Writing 6'2" with curly quotes produces a result that is typographically wrong and looks it. Coordinates, measurements and durations should all use primes, and a converter that turns every straight mark into a curly one gets these wrong every time.
Code must never be converted
The single most common damage caused by smart quotes is a code sample pasted from a document into a terminal or an editor, where the curly mark is not the quote character a parser expects and the error message is unhelpful. Anything inside backticks, inside a code block, or that looks like a command line should keep straight quotes, which is why this tool skips those regions rather than converting them.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How does the converter know which curly mark to use?
From what surrounds it. A mark following a letter, digit or closing punctuation is a closing mark, since it is either an apostrophe or the end of a quotation. A mark at the start of a word is an opening mark, except in elisions such as an apostrophe standing before a shortened decade, where it replaces removed characters and points the other way.
What are primes?
Distinct characters used for feet, inches, minutes, seconds and coordinates. They lean the opposite way to a closing quote. Writing a measurement with a curly quote is typographically wrong, so numeric measurements are converted to primes here rather than to quotes.
Why is code excluded?
Because a curly quote is not the quote character a parser expects, and a code sample pasted from a document into a terminal fails with an unhelpful error. Text inside backticks and code blocks keeps straight quotes.
Which quotation marks do other languages use?
German uses low opening and high closing marks, French uses guillemets with spacing, and several languages use reversed conventions. This tool applies English and American convention, so text in other languages needs the appropriate style rather than this one.
When should I straighten quotes instead?
For anything that will be parsed rather than read: code, configuration files, CSV data, command lines, URLs and search queries. Also when text is going into a system whose encoding handling is uncertain, since straight ASCII quotes survive more transformations intact.
Privacy & Security
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How to Use
Paste text and convert between straight and typographic quotation marks.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.
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