# Em-dash & Typographic Purifier

Convert AI-typical plain ASCII into proper typography: -- and --- become en/em dashes, straight quotes become curly/smart quotes (locale-aware), ... becomes a single ellipsis …, spaced dashes are tightened, and repeated spaces collapse — while fenced ``` code blocks and `inline` code are left untouched.

> Canonical page: https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/em-dash-and-typographic-purifier

- **Category:** Text Processing

- **Keywords:** em dash, en dash, typography, smart quotes, curly quotes, ellipsis, hyphen, apostrophe, guillemets, AI text, punctuation, typesetting, publishing

## Overview

Paste any text and the purifier fixes the typography that AI-generated and hastily-typed prose gets wrong:

1. **Dashes** — `---` becomes an em dash (—), `--` becomes an en dash (–), and number ranges like `1990-1992` become `1990–1992`. Spaced ` — ` is tightened so the dash hugs the words.
2. **Smart quotes** — straight `" "` and `' '` become curly, locale-aware guillemets/quotes. Apostrophes in contractions are handled.
3. **Ellipsis** — `...` and `. . .` collapse into a single ellipsis character (…).
4. **Whitespace** — runs of spaces/tabs collapse to one (newlines preserved).
5. **Code-safe** — fenced ```code blocks``` and `inline code` spans are detected and never modified.

Runs fully offline and deterministically.

## Inputs

- **Text to purify** (textarea): Paste text with -- dashes, "straight quotes", and ... ellipses…
- **Locale** (select)
- **Conversions** (select)
- **Fix spaced dashes ( — )** (checkbox)
- **Multiple spaces to single** (checkbox)
- **Preserve code blocks ``` and `inline`** (checkbox)

## When to use

- When preparing AI-generated drafts or raw transcripts for professional publication or typesetting.
- When you need to convert straight quotes to locale-specific curly quotes or guillemets automatically.
- When cleaning up double hyphens, spaced dashes, and multiple consecutive spaces in markdown files without breaking code syntax.

## How it works

- Paste your raw text into the input area and select your target language locale to determine the correct quotation style.
- Choose whether to apply all conversions or restrict the purification to dashes, quotes, or ellipses only.
- Toggle options to collapse multiple spaces, tighten spaced dashes, or preserve code blocks and inline code.
- Review the instantly generated output containing proper typographic characters ready for copy-pasting.

## Use cases

- Polishing blog posts and articles generated by LLMs that use straight quotes and double hyphens.
- Formatting localized copy for French, German, or Spanish websites using correct regional quotation marks.
- Cleaning up copy-pasted transcripts containing messy spacing, triple-dot ellipses, and inconsistent dashes.

## Frequently asked questions

### Does this tool modify code blocks?

No, if the preserve code option is enabled, fenced code blocks and inline code remain completely untouched.

### Which languages are supported for smart quotes?

It supports English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Portuguese, applying the correct local quotation marks for each.

### What is the difference between en-dashes and em-dashes here?

Double hyphens (--) convert to en-dashes (–) or em-dashes (—) depending on context, and triple hyphens (---) convert to em-dashes.

### Does the tool run online or offline?

It runs fully offline and deterministically in your browser, ensuring your text data remains private.

### Can I choose to only fix quotes and ignore dashes?

Yes, you can set the conversions option to 'Quotes only' to bypass dash and ellipsis transformations.

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