Textformatter Smart Quotes

A ProcessWire Textformatter that replaces straight quotes ("...") with typographic quotes – only in visible text content.

✨ Features

• Replaces "..." with typographic quotes like „...", "...", or « ... »
• Leaves all HTML markup and attributes untouched
• Simple and safe – no risky regular expressions
• Supports configurable quote styles:
  • German: „..."
  • English: "..."
  • French: « ... »
  • Custom: define your own opening and closing characters

Why this exists

We needed a way to convert straight quotes into proper typographic ones in content fields – but without breaking HTML attributes like:

<strong style="font-size: 18px;">Improved "well-being"</strong>

Most regex-based solutions failed, either:

• Replacing quotes inside HTML attributes (which breaks markup), or
• Missing valid quotes in visible content

This module solves that cleanly by operating only on the visible text, ignoring all tags and attributes.

Installation

1. Copy this module into your ProcessWire site under:

   /site/modules/TextformatterSmartQuotes/

2. In the ProcessWire admin, go to Modules → Refresh, then install Textformatter Smart Quotes.

3. In any text/textarea/CKEditor field settings, add the formatter under "Text formatters".

⚙️ Configuration

Go to Modules → Configure → Textformatter Smart Quotes
Select your preferred quote style from the dropdown.

If none of the presets fit, choose Custom — two additional text fields will appear where you can define your own opening and closing characters. Both fields are required when Custom is selected.

Feedback & Contributions

Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.
This module is simple by design, but open for improvements (e.g. nested quotes, single quote support, etc.).

Developed by frameless Media