What gets converted
- Left and right double quotes (“ ” „ ‟ « ») → straight double quote (")
- Left and right single quotes and curly apostrophes (‘ ’ ‚ ‛) → straight apostrophe (')
Where smart quotes cause trouble
Curly quotes are correct typography for prose, but they break things that expect ASCII: source code and config files, JSON payloads, SQL, CSV imports, environment variables, password fields, and search queries. If you've ever had code fail because a pasted snippet contained ” instead of ", this is the fix. Enable the other rules above to clean em dashes and hidden characters in the same pass.
Should I always use straight quotes?
For published prose, curly quotes are typographically correct. For anything a computer parses — code, data, forms — use straight quotes. This tool is for the second case.