Smart quotes minor mode for GNU Emacs by Gareth Rees <http://garethrees.org/>.
Add smart-quotes.el to your load-path and the following to your .emacs:
(require 'smart-quotes)
To turn on smart quotes minor mode in all text mode buffers, use:
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-smart-quotes)
To support spell checkers when using a curly right quote as an apostrophe,
customize ispell-local-dictionary-alist, adding for example:
(quote (("british" "[[:alpha:]]" "[^[:alpha:]]" "['’]" t ("-d" "en_GB") nil utf-8)))
This dictionary’s value can then be set as the name of ispell-local-dictionary.
Type M-x smart-quotes-mode RET to toggle smart quotes minor
mode. When smart quote minor mode is turned on, you can type an
apostrophe ' to insert a left or right single quotation mark
(depending on the context), and double quotes " to insert a left or
right double quotation mark.
The choice of left or right quotation mark depends on the variable
smart-quotes-left-context. This is a regular expression matching the
context in which a left quotation mark will be inserted. A right
quotation mark will be inserted in all other contexts. This variable can
be customized.
Smart quotes minor mode is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.