Smart quotes is a feature offered by some software (such as text editors), which automatically replaces vertical quotes and apostrophes with typographic quote characters (e.g. ‘ or ’, “ or ”) as user types.
Smart quotes is a feature offered by some software, such as text editors and word processors. It is about automatic replacement of vertical (neutral) quotes ("
) and apostrophes ('
) typed by user with typographic quote characters. Usually, software allows to enable or disable smart quotes.
Note that the term smart quotes refers to software feature, not to specific characters. There's no Unicode code point named "smart quote" or similarly.
Replacement characters differ depending on context: cursor at word beginning or end, current language, etc.
For example, replacement characters for vertical (double) quotes "
are usually “
and ”
in English, „
and “
in German, «
and »
in French or Russian.