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

This may not be the best solution, but I'd try testing to find out what PHP sees. Let's say it sees "–" (there are a few other possibilities, like simple "“" or maybe "“"). Then do a str_replace to get rid of all of those and replace them with normal quotes, before stuffing the answer in a database.

The better solution would probably involve making the end-to-end data passing all UTF-8, as people are trying to help with in other answers.