Smart Typography is a Firefox extension that quietly upgrades every text field with professional punctuation. It turns straight quotes into curly ones as you type, swaps ASCII shortcuts (like -> or ...) for their typographic counterparts, and even formats fractions with true glyphs or stacked numerators/denominators. A toolbar popup lets you pause the extension globally or toggle it per-site in one click.
- Replaces straight quotation marks with smart single (
‘ ’) and double (“ ”) quotes in real time, including nested contexts. - Converts common punctuation shortcuts into typographically correct characters without touching existing text.
- Detects typed fractions (e.g.,
3/4,11/16) and replaces them with dedicated Unicode glyphs or a superscript/subscript stack. - Provides a popup UI with global and per-site switches plus live status labels for the active tab.
- Offers an escape hatch: prefix a quote with
\to insert the literal straight character. - Draws a colored line on the extension icon so you can see whether Smart Typography is active on the current tab.
| Typed sequence | Replacement | Notes |
|---|---|---|
' |
‘ or ’ |
Chooses opening/closing form based on context. |
" |
“ or ” |
Tracks nested double quotes to decide when to close. |
... |
… |
Ellipsis, inserted after you finish typing the dots. |
-- |
— |
Em dash. |
<- |
← |
Left arrow. |
-> |
→ |
Right arrow. |
<= |
≤ |
Less-than or equal. |
>= |
≥ |
Greater-than or equal. |
/= |
≠ |
Not equal. |
<< |
« |
Left angle quotes / guillemets. |
>> |
» |
Right angle quotes / guillemets. |
The content script watches for number/number patterns immediately before the caret:
- Built-in glyphs:
1/2 → ½,1/3 → ⅓,2/3 → ⅔,1/4 → ¼,3/4 → ¾,1/5 → ⅕,2/5 → ⅖,3/5 → ⅗,4/5 → ⅘,1/6 → ⅙,5/6 → ⅚,1/7 → ⅐,1/8 → ⅛,3/8 → ⅜,5/8 → ⅝,7/8 → ⅞,1/9 → ⅑,1/10 → ⅒. - All other fractions fall back to stacked numerators and denominators using superscripts and subscripts, such as
11/16 → ¹¹⁄₁₆.
- Download the latest signed
.xpifrom the Releases page or by clicking here. - In Firefox, open
about:addons, click the gear icon, and choose Install Add-on From File…. - Select the downloaded package to complete the install (Firefox treats it like any other signed extension, so it will show up under Extensions and auto-update when you grab a new release).
- Global switch toggles Smart Typography everywhere and updates the badge/label immediately.
- Site switch overrides just the active origin (handy for CMS editors or online IDEs).
- Status text shows whether the current site is on, forced on, or disabled.
Released under the MIT License.
This extension’s icon was created by Xinh Studio.