This is a simple Vim function that converts non ASCII punctuation marks (like 'smart' quotes) to their ASCII equivalents.
Why? You have a text document that you want to copy/paste to applications that require ASCII (ie, SQL datatases, bash scripts, etc)
Usage:
call utf2ascii#replaceUTF()
Set up your own command to replace UTF characters in your document:
command! UTFToASCII :call utf2ascii#replaceUTF()<cr>
Note: Vim is itself 'utf aware' but your buffer must be properly configured to
handle UTF -- neovim/vim usually are configured this way (:set fileencoding=utf-8 | set encoding=utf-8).