About Smart Punctuation Converter

The Smart Punctuation Converter transforms straight quotes into elegant curved quotation marks, bringing professional typography to your writing with just one click.

How It Works

Our algorithm intelligently analyzes the context around each quote mark to determine whether it should be an opening or closing quote:

Double Quotes (")

  • Opening quotes ("): After whitespace, start of line, or opening punctuation
  • Closing quotes ("): All other cases

Single Quotes (')

  • Apostrophes ('): In contractions like "don't", "can't", "it's"
  • Opening quotes ('): After whitespace, start of line, or opening punctuation
  • Closing quotes ('): All other cases

Special Cases

  • Possessives ending in 's' (like "James' car") use the correct apostrophe
  • Years like "'90s" use the proper opening quote

Why Smart Quotes Matter

Smart quotes (also called curly quotes) are the hallmark of professional typography:

  • Visual Appeal: Curved quotes look more elegant than straight quotes
  • Readability: Proper opening and closing quotes guide the reader's eye
  • Professional Publishing: Books, magazines, and quality websites use smart quotes
  • Typographic Standards: Follow established conventions in typography

Inspiration

This tool was inspired by the "Smarten Punctuation" feature in Calibre eBook Management software. Calibre is an excellent tool for managing and converting eBooks, and its punctuation smartening feature helps create professionally formatted digital books.

Examples

Basic Quotes

Before: "Hello world"
After: “Hello world”

Contractions

Before: don't, can't, it's
After: don’t, can’t, it’s

Nested Quotes

Before: He said, 'She told me "hello" yesterday.'
After: He said, ‘She told me “hello” yesterday.’

Possessives

Before: James' car, the dogs' toys
After: James’ car, the dogs’ toys

Technical Details

The Smart Punctuation Converter is built with:

  • Jekyll: Static site generator for GitHub Pages
  • JavaScript: Client-side processing for instant results
  • Regular Expressions: Pattern matching for context-aware conversion
  • Responsive Design: Works on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices

Open Source

This project is open source and available on GitHub. Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome!

Try the Converter View Source Code