Apostrophe Guide for Text Formatting: Straight vs Curly

An apostrophe (‘ or ’) is a punctuation mark primarily used for contractions (e.g., “don’t”) and possessives (e.g., “John’s book”). However, there are two types of apostrophes commonly used in text formatting:

There is a  two type of apostrophes,

• Straight apostrophe (‘)
• Curly apostrophe (’)

Both look similar but behave differently in typography, encoding, and programming.

Straight apostrophe

• Symbal ( ‘ ).
• Unicode ( U+0027 ).
• Encoding ( ASCII ) default.

Used in programming, plain text, and coding (e.g., ‘single quotes’ in JavaScript)

Curly apostrophe

• Symbal ( ’ ).
• Unicode ( U+2019 ).
• Encoding ( UTF-8/Unicode ).

Used in rich text, typography, and word processors (e.g., ‘it’s a good day’ ).

Straight Apostrophe (‘)

•  Simple and universally supported
• Used in programming and databases
• Does not require special encoding

Example Usage in Code:

$text = “It’s a great day!”;

echo $text;

Common Issues:

• Looks less visually appealing in word processors.
• May be converted to a curly apostrophe automatically by some editors.

Curly Apostrophe (’)

• Visually appealing and typographically correct
• Used in rich-text applications and word processors
• Follows proper grammar and style rules

Example Usage in Text Formatting:

<p>It’s a great day!</p>;

Common Issues:

• Not supported in programming languages as a quote delimiter.
• May cause errors in code, databases, or search queries when copied from rich text editors.

Real-World Experience: How Sreyas IT Solutions Overcame Apostrophe-Related Errors

While developing a large-scale content management platform for one of our international clients, the Sreyas IT Solutions team encountered critical issues caused by curly apostrophes being unintentionally inserted into code and database entries. These characters, often introduced by copy-pasting content from Word documents or rich-text editors, resulted in:

• Database query failures
• Broken search functionality
• Unexpected syntax errors in PHP and JavaScript

Our Solution:

We implemented an automated normalization pipeline across both frontend and backend layers to sanitize user input:

1. Convert Curly to Straight (Fixing Issues in Code)
   If curly apostrophes cause errors in code or data, replace them with straight apostrophes:
   $text = str_replace(“’”, “‘”, $text);
2. Convert Straight to Curly (For Typography)
   For better text styling, replace straight apostrophes with curly ones:
   $text = str_replace(“‘”, “’”, $text);

          Best Practices:

• For Programming → Always use straight apostrophes (‘************)
• For Typographic Design → Use curly apostrophes (’************) for proper formatting
• For Databases → Ensure apostrophes are escaped properly (\’)
• For User Input → Normalize apostrophes to avoid unexpected errors

If you’re working with code, databases, or user input, use straight apostrophes (‘************) to avoid errors. If you’re designing rich-text documents or web content, use curly apostrophes (’************) for a professional look.Used in rich text, typography, and word processors (e.g., ‘it’s a good day’ ).