How do I get Emacs org-mode to create proper typographic marks when I export to HTML, including converting straight quotes to smart quotes ("curly quotes") and converting hyphens --- to m-dashes —?
This is now built into org-mode 8.x. To activate it, add the following to your Emacs configuration file:
(setq org-export-with-smart-quotes t)
It works for single quotes, double quotes, and apostrophes.
Source: @Ista