How do I convert Word smart quotes and em dashes in a string?

Question

I have a form with a textarea. Users enter a block of text which is stored in a database.

Occasionally a user will paste text from Word containing smart quotes or em

Answer 1

In my experience, it's easier to just accept the smart quotes and make sure you're using the same encoding everywhere. To start, add this to your form tag: accept-charset="utf-8"