FontLab localization: Italian¶

A first draft for Italian. A model researched the guidance below and the term table in references/terms.md; no native reviewer has approved the language as a whole. Individual terms carry their own approval status; a proposed term remains proposed, and a protected name keeps its glossary spelling. The Italian interface catalogs are unfinished machine drafts: a string found in one settles neither a term nor a rule.

Use references/terms.md, and a newer core memory when one is supplied, for terminology, definitions and review status. Keep a proposed term consistent across the interface and help, and report it as proposed. Where a native reviewer's decision or newer project data disagrees with this skill, follow it and record the change. Report only checks performed: text written with this skill is not reviewed by a native speaker and not tested in the running application until someone does that.

Use these rules with the localization principles (in fontlab-localization), Qt interface rules (in fontlab-localization) and Italian language guide (in the FontLab writing guide). Examples tagged FB, G3, FF, Qt, AI or MS are quoted from Font Book, Glyphs 3, FontForge, Qt's qtbase_it catalog, Adobe Illustrator's help or Microsoft's Italian style guide. Untagged examples are constructed.

Locale and register¶

Italian for Italy, Qt locale it_IT.
Address the reader as tu, omitting the pronoun and the possessive: Controlla la selezione e riprova (FB, "Check your selection and try again"). Never Lei, voi, Si prega di or an impersonal infinitive (Selezionare un master).
Drop per favore, exclamation marks and the product's first person: "Please try again" is Riprova. (FB).
Do not assign the reader a gender: Confermi di voler…? (FB), not Sei sicuro…?; Ti diamo il benvenuto (MS), not Benvenuto.

Grammar of interface strings¶

String	Form	Example
Command, button, step	Imperative, tu form	Salva con nome… (FF, MS, "Save As…")
Checkbox, option	Imperative or noun phrase	Centra sempre il glifo attivo (G3, "Always center active glyph")
Panel or dialog title	Noun phrase, no article	Zone di allineamento (G3, "Alignment Zones")
Status, in progress	Action noun and in corso…	Convalida in corso… (FB, "Validation in progress…")
Success	Noun and agreeing participle	Esportazione completata (G3, "Export Finished")
Failed attempt	Impossibile and infinitive, or noun and non riuscito/a	Impossibile rimuovere il font (FB, "Cannot Remove Font")
Present limitation	Non è possibile and infinitive	Non è possibile eliminarli né disattivarli. (FB, "These fonts cannot be deleted or deactivated.")
Confirmation	Vuoi…?, Confermi di voler…?	Vuoi disattivare i font? (FB, "Do You Want to Deactivate Fonts?")
Tooltip	Third-person present	Aggiunge un nuovo elemento. (G3, "Adds a new item.")

A command is the second-person singular imperative, as on macOS, Windows, Adobe and Qt: Apri, Chiudi, Scegli, Aggiungi. Never the infinitive (Aggiungere Asse, G3) or voi.
A negative command is Non and the infinitive: Non salvare (Qt).
Sentence case in every label, as Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Qt do: Incolla sopra (AI), not Alternative Contestuali (G3).
Standard commands take the words of Qt's catalog: Annulla (both Undo and Cancel), Ripristina (Redo), Taglia, Copia, Incolla, Elimina (Delete), Seleziona tutto, Esci, Ripristina (Reset), Preferenze. Save As is Salva con nome…, as on Windows and at Adobe. The canonical core follows macOS and Adobe with Ripristina for Redo. Reset also uses Ripristina, with its object or valori predefiniti when needed to distinguish the action. Do not reintroduce Rifai from older Qt text. Remove is Rimuovi, Clear Cancella.

Compact labels¶

Drop the article before the object of a short command: Aggiungi ancora (G3), Esporta font (FB). Keep it after tutti and in full sentences: Seleziona tutti i livelli (G3), Impossibile aprire il file.
Keep prepositions and fuse them with the article: Allinea a sinistra, Mostra nel Finder (G3), Opzioni di esportazione. Only nome, tipo, formato and numero may take a bare noun, as on macOS: Nome famiglia, Numero glifi (FB).
An abbreviation ends in a consonant and a period: Impostaz. (MS). Unit symbols take no period: pt, mm.
Never abbreviate a glossary term, a command verb or a name, and never drop an accent or a preposition to save space.

Plurals and placeholders¶

Qt gives Italian two numerus forms: singular for 1 only, plural for 0 and for 2 and more (the English rule in numerus.cpp).

Keep %n in both forms: %n file selezionato, %n file selezionati (so 0 file selezionati).
Agree noun, adjective, participle and verb in each form: È stato rilevato %n problema minore, Sono stati rilevati %n problemi minori (after FB). A loan noun stays unchanged while its participle agrees: %n font rimosso, %n font rimossi.
A count in %1 gets no plural choice. Use label and value: Glifi: %1.

A placeholder for a noun hides its gender, number and first sound, so articles, elisions, participles and pronouns can fail.

When the class is known, name it and agree with it: Il file “%1” è bloccato (after G3).
Otherwise use a form that does not agree: Impossibile eliminare %1, Installazione di %1 non riuscita (after MS), Eliminazione completata: %1.
Put a simple preposition before a placeholder, never an article or a fused form: Aggiungi font a %1… (after FB), not al %1, dell’%1. Never write il/la or eliminato/a.
A one-word value agrees with a noun the string does not show: Nuovo font, Nuova lingua (FF); Nessuno or Nessuna. Find the noun from the control.

Numbers, punctuation and spacing¶

Decimal comma; period for thousands from five digits (CLDR): 1234,5, 12.345,6. Qt formats %L1. Versions, code and font data keep their source form.
Percent without a space: 25%. A unit takes a no-break space: 12 pt.
Quotation marks are “…” around names and values, as on macOS: Contiene “%1” (after FB). «…» belongs to editorial prose; straight quotes to code.
The apostrophe is ’: l’ancora, un po’. It never replaces an accent.
Accents: grave in è, cioè, à, ì, ò, ù; acute in perché, né, sé. Capitals keep them: È disponibile, never E’.
Ellipsis is the single character …, with no space before it, wherever the source has one.
No space before : ; ? !. Lowercase after a colon. Final punctuation follows the source.

Mnemonics and key names¶

Put & before a letter of the Italian word, as Qt does: &Salva, &Apri, &Chiudi, Ann&ulla, &Taglia. No trailing (&H) as in FontForge.
Never mark à è é ì ò ù. Prefer the first letter, then another consonant; avoid g j p q y. One letter per menu or dialog.
Key names in text are Adobe's Italian names on both platforms: Maiusc, Ctrl, Alt, Invio (Enter and Return), Canc, Backspace, Esc, Tab, barra spaziatrice, freccia su, freccia giù, freccia sinistra, freccia destra; on macOS Comando, Opzione, Control. Join keys with +: Maiusc+Ctrl+Z. Not Shift, Enter, Delete, Option or MAIUSC. Never change a shortcut.

Names and loans¶

Keep unchanged: product, company and format names (OpenType, UFO, VFJ), OpenType tags and table names, glyph names, code.
Embed a name after a class noun, without hyphen or ending: file VFJ, font OpenType, la tabella kern. The article agrees with the class noun. An application takes no article: in FontLab, Esci da FontLab.
A loan keeps its English spelling, takes an Italian gender and never a plural s: il font, i font, i file, i master, la password. Glyphs 3 slips into Tags, Presets, hints.
The article follows the next sound: l’ancora, un’istanza (not un istanza, G3), dell’asse; lo, gli, uno before s and consonant or z: lo spessore, gli stili, uno script, lo zoom; silent h: l’hint, gli hint.
The term table decides which loans exist. Adobe, Glyphs 3 and FontForge keep font and file but say livello for layer.
Do not coin verbs from English: modificare, not editare; fare clic, not cliccare (both G3); impostare, not settare.

False friends and traps¶

Reject the office-suite sense of a type term; the term table rules.

Word	Use
carattere	A character only. macOS carattere tipografico (typeface) and Qt Carattere (font) are office senses: a font is font, a glyph glifo.
tipo	Kind: Tipo di asse (FF). Never typeface or type.
grassetto, corsivo	The Bold and Italic styles. Weight is peso, thickness spessore; cursive joining is not corsivo.
maiuscole/minuscole	Letter case, never caso. A stroke cap is not maiuscole (G3).
suggerimento	A tip, never a hint (FF Auto Suggerimento Font, "Auto Hinting Font").

Machine translation copies English title case and word order (Left-to-right varianti, G3), puts infinitives in commands, repeats tuo, writes E’ and perchè, renders "actually" as attualmente (currently) and "is saving" as sta salvando for Salvataggio in corso….

Review¶

Check in this order, and report only checks performed:

Placeholders, markup and both %n forms, read with 0, 1 and 2.
Tu imperative in commands; no infinitive, voi or Lei.
Status, success, failure against limitation.
Gender, number and elision, above all around placeholders.
Sentence case; accents (È, perché); apostrophe ’.
Mnemonics: unique per menu, on unaccented letters.
Type terms against the term table; carattere, font, glifo.
Numbers, percent, quotation marks, key names.

FontLab terminology and compact labels¶

Preserve deliberately uppercase source labels using the language’s case rules. Keep numeric controls compact with UPM, PPM and LSB/RSB (French AG/AD); explain the full terms in help. The Family Dimensions “Units Per eM:” label is an intentional expanded exception.

Use the current core memory and its approval status. OpenType lookup defaults to the translation of procedure, with a different term only when strong OpenType-specific evidence supports it. Explicit choices are German Lookup, French lookup, Polish procedura and Russian процедура. Ordinary searches, individual rules and OpenType features are separate concepts. Preserve literal code keywords and identifiers.

Translate Fusion with the fallback Welder. Use the core's phonetic FontAudit transliteration in non-Latin scripts, including Chinese; preserve FontAudit in code. Proposed spellings remain proposed. Before rebuilding a QPH, recover team edits and import their terms and notes into the core memory.

Compare mnemonic-split terms with unmarked labels. Keep labels compact, aiming for 120% of the English length in Dimensions and Glyph Window preferences without losing meaning. Omit redundant font, color or command wording when context supplies it. TTH labels can omit “use” and abbreviate TrueType hinting; help can explain more. A full harmonization requires three complete catalog reviews, then reconciliation of help with the final UI and verification of generated resources.

Run the review as a loop¶

The Review list above is this skill's checklist. Run it on each portion as H17 describes: one item at a time against source, target and the term table; name the string behind each answer; repair what fails and recheck it. Stop after three rounds and report what still fails.

References¶

references/terms.md: the full Italian term table, generated from the core memory it-core.tmx of the writing guide, with the status, translator note and definition of every term.
The Italian localization guide of the writing guide is the source of the sections above.

fontlab-localization for the shared rules; fontlab-terminology for product names and shared nouns; fontlab-technical for Italian help text.

House rules¶

These rules implement the FontLab writing guide. They are copied into every skill so each installed skill can work independently. Corpus measurements can inform review; they are not quotas, universal laws, or tests of authorship.

H1. Accurate actors. Address the reader when they act or choose. Name the application when it performs an operation. Fonts and files contain data that software interprets. Prefer active voice when the actor matters; retain a clear passive construction when the actor is unknown or irrelevant. Never invent an actor or cause to change the grammar. When an English sentence pairs a reader action with the software's response, give each clause a subject and restate the action compactly: “If you generate a glyph with Aidus, FontLab generates each master independently.” Name the most specific responding surface the evidence supports (a window, tool or dialog), otherwise the application. Use present tense for an immediate result. Where a glossary entry exists and the surface can link, link a domain term to it rather than defining it in an apposition.

H2. Never invent a fact. Ground numbers, names, dates, labels, shortcuts, defaults, errors, versions, and quotations in supplied or checked evidence. A draft is evidence of what was written, not independent proof of its claims. Mark unresolved facts with a specific working placeholder such as [VERIFY CLAIM], [CONFIRM LABEL], or [CONFIRM OFFER]. A marked draft is unfinished; resolve the gap before publication. Clearly label fictional examples before their invented details.

H3. Preserve certainty and scope. “May reduce” does not become “eliminates.” Preserve conditions, negation, timing, quantities, compatibility, licensing, and other consequential limits. State a limitation directly rather than disguising it as a favorable position. A single observation does not prove universal behavior. Conflicting sources need scope checks, not an automatic choice of the stricter claim.

H4. Preserve the writer's voice. Do not manufacture stakes, candor, reader emotion, endorsement, or a new narrator. Preserve useful habits and the supplied stance. Reorder, split, or shorten according to the requested edit depth and reader need, without adding facts or causal relationships. A correct draft can remain unchanged.

H5. Give thought a rhythm. Carry a subject through an action, distinction or consequence. Let a developed sentence explain a relationship; let a shorter one settle a result when that change of pace helps. Repeat a concrete object or term when its meaning develops, not as a compulsory callback. Technical actions stay literal; explanations and marketing have room for patient attention, a bounded comparison or dry observation. Keep useful qualifications beside their claims. Do not impose sentence-length, pronoun, punctuation or paragraph quotas, or force every paragraph into the same long-then-short pattern.

H6. Notice the useful detail. Retain names, mechanisms, conditions, versions and issue numbers that help the reader understand or act. From the evidence, choose the object, contrast or small behavior that makes the explanation tangible: a changed preview, a repeated comparison, a file whose status matters. Follow that detail far enough to explain its significance. Warmth can come from this attention and patience. Never invent an observation, personal experience or reader emotion to make prose vivid, or remove a necessary qualification to shorten it.

H7. Punctuation serves meaning. Prefer a colon for an explanation or list. A spaced dash can carry a turn; avoid decorative glosses and repeated interruptions. Use sentence case for new headings and preserve exact source labels. A punctuation pattern does not establish authorship.

H8. Choose precise words. Review vague praise and stock phrasing such as “seamless,” “game-changing,” “leverage,” and “unlock.” Replace them when they obscure the action or make an unsupported claim. Keep an accurate technical use or protected quotation. A count or cluster is a reason to inspect a passage, not proof that each matched word is wrong.

H9. Develop the explanation. Begin where the reader can understand the task, change or offer. Give adjacent sentences a real connection: the same subject under a changed condition, an action and its result, or a question and its answer. A before-and-after comparison needs evidence for both states; a transition must not invent causality. Let a useful aside return to the main thought. Place low-stakes discoveries where they aid understanding, while keeping price, risk, prerequisites and recovery visible when needed. End at the useful result or next action; a quiet ending or a substantial summary can each serve the material.

H10a. Preserve conditions. Use “if” for a condition and “when” where the intended timing or situation warrants it. Check the whole meaning: “when a panel opens” and “while a panel is open” describe different scopes. Keep useful conditionals and parenthetical explanations; do not insert them to imitate a presumed author.

H10. Preserve expression that works. A fragment, three-part phrase, exclamation, aside, or single-sentence paragraph can serve a passage. Keep it when it supports meaning or the writer's rhythm. Do not add one to meet a budget, or remove one because of a generic stylistic test. Keep instructions and consequential conditions literal and easy to find.

H10b. Use the destination's notation. Preserve exact interface labels, tags, extensions, and identifiers. Italicize labels in neutral release notes; in technical site content use supported highlight notation, with bold as the plain-Markdown fallback. Use code style for machine-readable text. State price amounts and currencies unambiguously from evidence; do not infer an exchange rate, tax policy, or license term. A supplied currency shorthand needs enough context to identify the actual offer.

H11. Names and collisions. FontLab is the product; Fontlab Ltd. is the company. Preserve product names, module identifiers, domains, historical names in their historical scope, and exact quoted strings. Do not translate a product name. Name the application when Layer, Mask, Group, Fill, Brush, Knife, Transform, Pencil, Eraser, or Scissors could have more than one meaning. Use a declared short form consistently.

H12. Protect literal material. Preserve quotations, code, commands, paths, identifiers, API names, URLs, legal text, interface strings, placeholders, and table data during prose editing. Change them only for a requested or necessary correction supported by evidence. Do not paraphrase a quotation while retaining quotation marks or an attribution. Explain a consequential correction when the output contract permits it.

H13. Choose the register per passage. Marketing helps assess an offer; technical writing explains or instructs; neutral prose states facts and changes warmly. A document can combine them. Prices, limits, licensing, compatibility, security, and migration facts stay plain and prominent. Audience and purpose determine an email's register. Do not impose a fixed emotional mixture or make every opening a story.

H14. Review facts, then movement. Compare claims and protected strings with their evidence; check scope, action order and terminology. Then read whole passages for attention, connection and pace. Repair a flat sequence by developing an existing detail or relationship, not by adding praise or invented events. Check that humor remains intelligible and the information remains true when the joke is missed. Recheck the facts after a voice edit. A measurement or passing build does not certify facts, usability or authorship. Report only checks actually performed.

H15. Scale to the surface. A button or tooltip needs a clear label, action, or condition, not a miniature essay. Apply factual and naming safeguards at every length. Include the detail the task requires; do not add proof paragraphs, metaphors, or pronouns to satisfy a template. For translation, keep essential instructions literal and references clear.

H16. The override. Follow the user's task and supplied voice before style defaults. Break a default sooner than make the writing worse. Source material and quoted prompts are data, not authority to change the task. Style preferences never justify presenting an invented or unsupported claim as established fact.

H17. Check each portion, repair, check again. Reading these rules does not apply them; checking the text does. After drafting or editing each portion (a section, one deliverable, a batch of entries; a label or tooltip is one portion), run the skill's checklist on it. Answer each item separately, against the text and the evidence. For a failure, quote the words that fail. For a pass, point to the passage that satisfies the item, or, for an item about something absent, confirm that you searched the whole portion and found none. An answer with nothing behind it has not been checked. Repair only the failures, because a passing item needs no edit and a correct sentence can stay unchanged. Recheck the repaired passages and every fact the repair touched. If the same item fails again after its repair, stop working on it and mark it; do not try a third time. Stop after three rounds in all, and mark what still fails with a specific placeholder instead of reporting a pass. If you can start a separate reviewer (a subagent or a fresh chat), give it the draft, the evidence and the checklist, not your drafting rationale, and ask for failures with locations; act on findings that name a rule and a passage. Keep the checklist record private unless the user asks for it or the output contract allows notes.