Converting funky characters

Hey all, What's the best way to filter/convert characters that don't translate properly from say news stories to HTML? For example, I have a form that people cut and paste the lead in paragraph from news stories they want to link to from their sites to the original. And of course things like long dashes, double quotes, single quotes, etc, always translate is wacky unprintables when they are rendered, and the user needs to edit them to replace them with standard characters. Is there way to filter this text through a function that will convert them to web friendly chars? Thanks, Skip -- ==================================== Skip Evans PenguinSites.com, LLC 503 S Baldwin St, #1 Madison WI 53703 608.250.2720 http://penguinsites.com ------------------------------------ Those of you who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand. -- Kurt Vonnegut