Italian (Italy) style guide¶
Use this page for Italian written for readers in Italy. Follow the shared voice, mechanics and localization review guidance. The examples below resolve Italian choices; they do not establish product features or replace approved terminology.
Address and register¶
Use tu in product help and ordinary support. The verb usually supplies the person: Apri il file is a direct instruction without an explicit tu. Keep address consistent through a procedure. A letter or relationship that calls for Lei needs its own consistent verb and pronoun forms; do not switch merely because a sentence contains a technical term.
Use an imperative for an action label or direct instruction, and a suitable noun phrase for a topic: Esporta il file, Esportazione dei file. The imperative is the second-person singular, as in the Italian interfaces of macOS, Windows, Adobe and Qt: Apri, Chiudi, Scegli, Aggiungi; its negative is non with the infinitive, as in Non salvare. Do not alternate imperative and infinitive instructions within the same procedure. An infinitive can still occur naturally in an explanation, as in Per esportare il file, scegli il formato.
Use noi or a first-person plural verb when the company or support team acts. An application operation does not require a fictional human speaker. Name the component when readers need to know what failed. Prefer familiar words such as usare and provare, without replacing a precise technical term or banning utilizzare and tentare in every context.
Meaning and word choice¶
Translate the whole claim. Puoi, riesci a and sei in grado di can distinguish permission, success and ability; they are not universal substitutes. Vedere can direct someone to a reference, but it cannot replace every occurrence of fare riferimento a. Preserve a qualification that limits what a feature does: helping to protect something is not a guarantee of protection.
Keep quantities and choices exact. English any may mean one unrestricted choice, all matching objects or no object in a negative sentence. Scegli uno dei formati permits one format; Scegli uno o più formati permits several. Do not introduce “one or more” when the source requires exactly one action.
Use established short forms where they fit: app, PC, email. Choose informazioni in explanatory prose and info only where the compact, informal form suits the surface. A shorter word must still identify the same thing. Fatto a mano means handmade, not everything made by people. A collective such as corpo elettorale does not necessarily identify the same people as those who actually voted.
Keep real names, roles and objects intact. Do not turn Francis into Francesco or Francesca without a reason established by the brief. Adapt a fictional example only when its purpose and factual constraints permit it. Use interface actions to distinguish selecting, clicking and reproducing a gesture; watching a demonstration alone may not perform the required action.
People and agreement¶
Prefer wording that does not assign an unsupported gender: Ti diamo il benvenuto can replace a gendered greeting. Use chi usa il programma or a precise role when appropriate. A collective such as personale must not turn one person into a group. Retain the restriction in Chi dispone delle autorizzazioni necessarie può modificare le password; a shorter sentence must not grant permission to everyone.
For a named person, use that person's name, pronouns and professional title. Grammatical gender does not establish personal gender. Keep agreement in la persona autorizzata and le persone autorizzate, regardless of the people's identities. In new general product prose, prefer ordinary words and complete grammatical forms over improvised suffix strings. Preserve a person's own spelling and an exact quotation.
Do not remove a relevant family relationship, disability or responsibility to make a sentence generic. Persona con disabilità is not inherently pitying language. Follow the person's preferred description and the shared accessible-content guidance. Give input-specific instructions when the actual task requires them; a blanket replacement of fai clic with seleziona can change the action.
Nouns, articles and sentence structure¶
Keep established English loan nouns invariant in ordinary Italian prose: un file, due file, il server, i server. Number still affects agreement: Il file è stato eliminato and I file sono stati eliminati. Do not infer that every new specialist borrowing must follow the same pattern; check its accepted usage. Accented nouns such as città also remain unchanged in the plural.
Choose a borrowed noun's gender and article from established Italian usage: la password, l’API, il widget, l’host. Do not assign masculine gender to every foreign word or invent a physical-object versus abstract-feature rule. A category noun can clarify a name: nel programma FontLab, nel menu File. Keep exact product and interface names intact.
Adjective position can affect meaning: un vecchio amico need not describe the person's age, whereas un amico vecchio can do so. In technical phrases, retain the established term and the modifier's scope. Shorten possessives only when ownership remains clear. Il tuo file and il file di Marta cannot both become il file when the distinction matters.
Use the preposition required by the Italian construction: salva su disco, inserisci l’immagine nel documento, fai clic sul pulsante. Moving data dal database expresses its source; i dati del database expresses a relationship. Do not treat every from as one fixed preposition.
Keep conjunctions, tense and mood appropriate to the meaning. Replacing affinché with per may require restructuring the clause. Do not replace a future event, condition or hypothetical result with an asserted present fact. A clause such as se il file fosse aperto is hypothetical; se il file è aperto can test a current condition.
Messages and variables¶
Choose wording for the operation's actual state:
| Function | Example |
|---|---|
| Action label | Salva il file |
| Instruction | Salva il file. |
| In progress | Salvataggio del file in corso. |
| Completed | File salvato. |
| Failed attempt | Impossibile salvare il file. or Salvataggio del file non riuscito. |
| Current impossibility | Non è possibile salvare il file. |
A failed copy is not merely a statement that copying is unavailable. Preserve the actor or component when it distinguishes failures. Do not invent a cause, restart requirement or recovery promise. A fragment such as Memoria insufficiente works only when the surrounding interface makes the failed operation clear.
Keep everyone affected and the uncertainty in a warning: Se riavvii ora, tu e le altre persone che usano questo computer potreste perdere il lavoro non salvato. Do not turn potreste into a certain loss. A question remains a question: Vuoi continuare? Follow interface feedback for the message's function.
Check what each placeholder can contain. Non è possibile aprire il file {name}. keeps a filename separate from grammatical agreement. A person, application name or list needs its own construction. Preserve token names, format specifiers, escapes and markup; reorder only when the parser permits it. Do not assume every format called %c contains a letter.
Test counts in complete messages. 1 file eliminato and 2 file eliminati show why the invariant noun does not remove the need for agreement. 1 cartella eliminata changes gender as well. Use the product's plural-message mechanism and test zero and other supported values. Qt gives Italian two forms: the singular for exactly 1, and the plural for 0 and for 2 or more, as in 0 file eliminati. See messages and variables.
Interface labels and type terms¶
A short command drops the article before its object and keeps its prepositions: Aggiungi ancora, Allinea a sinistra, Opzioni di esportazione. A full sentence keeps the article. The article and its elision follow the sound of the next word, borrowed or not: l’ancora, un’istanza, lo script, gli hint. Put no article or fused preposition before a placeholder whose value is unknown: Aggiungi font a %1, not al %1.
A tooltip that describes a control takes the third person, as in Apre una nuova scheda. A status message names the action and adds in corso; it does not make the application speak in the first person.
Carattere is a character. Office software also uses it for a font or a typeface; in type-design text a font is font and a glyph is glifo. Corsivo and grassetto name the Italic and Bold styles, peso the weight and maiuscole/minuscole the letter case. The Italian localization guide gives the interface rules.
Capitalization and abbreviations¶
Use sentence case for new headings and labels: Opzioni di esportazione, Salva con nome. Keep Italian weekday, month and language names lowercase: lunedì, settembre, italiano. Proper names and exact interface labels retain their spelling. Do not impose capitals on every key name or copy a supplier's legal typography into ordinary help.
Keep accents on capitals: È disponibile. An apostrophe does not replace an accent. Preserve perché, più and città; un po’ takes an apostrophe, while qual è does not. Required ASCII in a command or identifier remains literal.
Use established abbreviations sparingly: art., cfr., p., pp., ecc. Do not shorten every word by counting letters or cutting after a consonant. Unit symbols such as mm, kg, s and GB are a different category: keep their case and omit an abbreviation period. A bit and a byte are not interchangeable.
Explain an unfamiliar initialism when useful, without adding two parenthetical expansions to every occurrence. Use an established Italian equivalent when it denotes the same organization or concept. An acronym's grammatical treatment depends on what it names; a category noun can help, as in l’interfaccia API.
Punctuation, numbers and line breaks¶
Do not separate a subject from its verb with a stray comma: Il file è stato rimosso. A parenthetical clause can legitimately sit between them. A simple list normally has no comma before its final e: file, cartelle e modelli. Use a comma when the actual sentence structure needs one, rather than applying a universal ban after introductory phrases.
Use a colon for an explanation or a grammatically introduced list. Put no space before a comma, period or colon, and use normal spacing after it in prose. Decimal marks and other notation follow their own rules. Put question marks belonging to a quotation inside it, as in «Vuoi continuare?»; do not move every punctuation mark outside quotes or parentheses. Keep parentheses close to their contents and use them when they clarify the sentence. Interface strings put “…” around a name or a value, as macOS does; «…» belongs to editorial prose.
Distinguish a range dash from a mathematical minus: pagine 3–6, −18 °C. Keep a nonbreaking space between a value and its unit or currency: 12,5 mm, 12,50 €. Italian takes a decimal comma and a period for thousands from five digits: 1234,5, 12.345,6. The percent sign follows the number without a space in the interface: 25%. Use locale formatting for dynamic numbers, and preserve literal version syntax such as 1.2.0. Do not change the amount or unit while changing its notation.
Use the ellipsis character … in prose. In instructions, reproduce an existing control's punctuation exactly, including Salva con nome… when that is its label. Do not add an ellipsis to every progress message or remove one from a quoted control merely because it appears in documentation.
Keyboard wording and speech¶
Name the actual key: premi Invio, freccia su, barra spaziatrice. Use the Italian names Maiusc, Ctrl, Alt, Canc and, on macOS, Comando, Opzione and Control, as Adobe's Italian applications do; Shift, Enter and Option stay English only inside a quoted label. Explain a numeric-keypad distinction when the task needs it. Verify shortcuts, access keys and focus behavior in the target product; translated shortcut catalogs do not establish current behavior. Avoid collisions and retain platform differences such as Command versus Ctrl.
For narration, use natural Italian pronunciation and an approved reading of names. Spell an unfamiliar initialism when that makes it clearer. Read every character needed to reproduce a URL, version or command; do not omit a meaningful punto. Follow the shared audiovisual guidance for pacing, captions and visual information.
FontLab terminology decisions (2026-10-04)¶
Follow the canonical FontLab glossary, including its approval status and contextual notes. The current choices are:
| Concept | Wording |
|---|---|
| OpenType lookup | lookup |
| Fusion, using the fallback Welder | Saldatore |
| FontAudit, visible name | FontAudit |
| Pin, a named point in an element | perno |
For OpenType lookup, the default is the translation of procedure. Retain a different term only with strong OpenType-specific evidence; the explicit German, French, Polish and Russian decisions take precedence. Ordinary search, dictionary lookup and code keywords are separate senses. Preserve literal lookup, lookupflag, LookupList and identifiers in code. Keep individual rules distinct from the procedures that group them.
Use the FontAudit name above in visible interface text and prose; preserve FontAudit in code and identifiers. In non-Latin scripts it is a phonetic transliteration, including Chinese. A proposed glossary entry remains proposed; this table does not confer native-team approval.
Keep marked and unmarked menu labels consistent after accounting for Qt mnemonic & and appended shortcuts. In Dimensions and Glyph Window preferences, aim for labels no longer than 120% of the source; preserve meaning when that target is impractical. Omit redundant font or colour wording when context supplies it. TTH options may omit the verb “use” and abbreviate TrueType hinting as TTH. Help may be longer, but quoted interface labels must match the final UI.
FontLab Rapid tool¶
FontLab names this tool Rapid. The name stays recognizable in the interface and Quick Help; it does not mean an ordinary fast or quick action. Use the canonical TS spelling and translate the surrounding grammar, as in Disegno con Rapid. The contrast classifications containing English rapid use the ordinary adjective instead. See the localization guide for the current terminology and source-version checks.
Quick Help controls and explanatory terms¶
Use Avanzamento for the advance-width control. The core explicitly allows larghezza di avanzamento in explanatory prose; do not replace it merely because the compact label is shorter. Width of outlines, a frame or a bounding box remains larghezza. When English Advance width and Width identify the same metric, use a single Avanzamento heading rather than duplicate aliases.
The Glyph panel uses Spazia automaticamente, while Bar_Metrics uses Spaziatura automatica. Set Width uses Regola spalla sinistra / destra; do not invent Regola LSB/RSB labels. ActionSetMetrics populates its menu at runtime with Automatico + regola, Diminuisci di and Imposta uguale a; the static designer text can differ. Keep expanded UPM explanations in help.
Preserve control context: Bar_SingleNode uses Rifletti in orizzontale / verticale, while Bar_Shape uses Rifletti orizzontalmente / verticalmente. ShapesPanel uses Ribaltamento orizzontale / verticale in tempo reale. Bar_Shape's anchored-component switch is Componente ancorato. The current Stem tool is Asta; older help that names the Thickness tool must follow it. Bar_SingleNode's position-or-offset label uses spostamento, while Bar_Delta and ActionOverlay use Scostamento X/Y.
Apply lowercase after a colon to ordinary explanatory sentences. Quick Help's
formatted shortcut tokens such as SHIFT, ALT and CTRL stay intact; the
prose key-name guidance does not require changing those shared literals.
Match Finestra del glifo, Finestra del font, Intervallo di progetto
and Coordinate di progetto, with natural articles in running sentences.
A definition of one element filter remains singular. Its command references use Espandi filtro dell’elemento and Rimuovi filtro dell’elemento in ShapesPanel, and Espandi filtri / Rimuovi filtro in the Element menu. The text bar's Rimuovi testo removes the active text element; it does not remove a stroke. Clearing nonspacing restores elements to metric calculations, rather than changing a glyph's advance-width value directly.
The transform bar uses Riduci / Ingrandisci. Avoid the old help's blanket claim about the result at 100%: the current up-handler has a special-case boundary there that needs the coordinated source/runtime audit. Zero leaves the dimension unchanged.
Dialog labels and units¶
Match the command in its own context: DlgFontGlyphsDelete uses Pulisci, DlgFontGlyphsReplace uses Accoda, and DlgNewLayer uses Aggiungi master. DlgLinkMetrics uses Collega LSB / RSB, unlike Set Width's full sidebearing labels. In DlgFindOutline, TROVA / SOSTITUISCI name sections. Keep the Personalizzati mode name unchanged inside a sentence, using quotation marks when necessary. Duplicate-glyph confirmation uses OK.
The Quick Help editor uses Trova, Descrizione comando and Compila QuickHelp. Use guida rapida in ordinary prose. Browsing selects the JSON destination; compilation generates the file from the YAML sources. The Layer Properties section chooses properties to copy; it does not describe only the Lock checkbox. Blocco can name a state without becoming the imperative Blocca. A bilateral kerning class is both first/left and second/right.
Text-shape size is in font units. PPM counts pixels per em; UPM counts font
units per em, so their numeric values need not be equal. Keep pixel per em
when it explains the unit. In DlgExpand, Angolo vivo names the miter join;
its limit is a factor relative to stroke width, not a distance in font units.
The kerning adjustment menu displays unità and %; percentuale is
valid explanatory prose.
Use Collega for the current Attach command. An About dialog reports version and license information; it does not confirm a generic operation. Verify axis-map behavior against the active controls: hidden legacy controls and a logarithmic curve do not justify claims about separate X/Y maps or a universal slow-to-fast progression.
Panels, runtime values and font naming¶
Keep Vista for the View panel and Visualizza for the menu. Match Modifica su più livelli for Edit Across, Stato della superspinta in Glyph Window preferences, and Aste for the View panel's stem toggle. Use Tag in DlgTags and FontWindow, while DlgNewClass uses Etichetta del glifo. Match each control rather than replacing all occurrences globally.
FontInfoPanel populates weight and slope choices at runtime with literal names such as Regular, Plain, Italic and Oblique. These take precedence over translated designer samples. Explain that an italic font is style-linked to another font; the old source can imply assigning Italic to arbitrary fonts. Keep complete units-per-em explanations where they help.
Font naming commands change metadata in the selected fonts. Describe which family, style and style-group names they derive; do not describe only visual regrouping or promise CSS compatibility. Raggruppamento corsivo retains the Regular/Italic distinction. Separa stili assigns Regular style linking and uses the full font name for the style group. The font list button opens a chooser; the Fonts panel menu offers file location and sorting.
FontWindow uses Nascondi glifi esclusi dal filtro, Col. and Sincronizza con didascalia della cella. Caption position is In alto / In basso; cell proportions use singular Stretta, Normale, Ampia and Molto ampia. Preserve formatted shortcut literals when correcting nearby labels. Coordinate Preview Rounding's condition with the application: when Round Coordinates is on, the preview option has no separate effect.
Glyph widgets and font information¶
GlyphWindow uses Imposta sistema di scrittura del testo and Imposta lingua del testo; GW_Features uses per il testo in those labels. Keep script names supplied by ICU, such as Latin, unchanged. The Glyph-window choices Automatico and Predefinito are translated, and the language selector also uses Predefinito. Fit that exact label into the sentence rather than changing it to Predefinita.
GW_Guide's measurement button is Misurazione. Bar_Guideline and InspectorGuide use Indicatori di misura for the related feature. GW_Nodes and GW_Transform use Scala proporzionale; GW_Transform uses Rifletti orizzontalmente / verticalmente. Keep Asta for the current Stem tool in stroke-panel instructions. The History command is Avanza velocemente and describes interpolation between recorded states.
In Info_Dimensions, the UPM field is Unità per em, and the safe limits are Limite superiore sicuro / Limite inferiore sicuro. Keep the difference between the font's unit count and its displayed point size. Info_Glyph's advance-width label is Avanzamento; its bounding-box width is Larghezza. Do not infer that all Width fields in one panel share a meaning.
Names, Masters and Instances populate their style menus at runtime. Preserve Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic and the separate slope values Plain / Italic / Oblique where they name actual choices. Keep a source recommendation such as “should” distinct from a requirement, except when quoting the exact existing interface label.
Inspector controls and main-menu help¶
Use Blocca testo for a text-frame lock and Blocca contenuto for an element-content lock. Ingrandisci maximizes or restores a frame; it does not lock its size. Glyph-position pins use glyph coordinates and expressions. Check legacy handlers before promising a coordinate edit or a separate dialog.
Keep the Lookups panel Regole distinct from each lookup it contains: Aggiungi lookup does not add a feature. Match feature commands such as Aggiorna funzioni… and Compila e aggiorna funzioni selezionate…. Use Abbina spostamenti and Abbina modifiche for their separate modes.
Match command and dialog names separately: Trova contorno opens Ricerca contorno, and Importa metriche opens Importazione metriche. The Actions category is Base, and the Workspaces menu is Aree di lavoro. Sketchboard export uses Esporta cornice. Text wrapping uses Testo › A capo › Auto and the preference Ritorno a capo automatico a.
Retain larghezza di avanzamento in explanatory prose when it clarifies the metric. Preserve formatted shortcut tokens. Use Aste for the actual View-panel toggle; do not substitute the expanded measurement description.
Quick Help: preferences, previews and repeated controls¶
Use Manuale d’uso, Guida rapida and Scripting in their current contexts. Preserve exact legacy labels when necessary to identify a control, but verify its action: the Pairs button labeled Font aperti imports a pairs or sample-text file. The Metrics panel edits advance width and sidebearings. Its preview toggle does not make it a kerning editor.
Riavvolgi and Avanza velocemente adjust interpolation between stored states. They do not step through recorded snapshots. Crea riferimento shares contour data for ordinary contour elements; other element types are cloned. Keep Scostamento di duplicazione for the duplicate-offset setting.
Aidus calls Smart Filters filtri furbi. Font-window Data di modifica is the modification date, not the Unicode introduction version. Caption sizes are populated at runtime as auto / piccolo / medio / grande; the designer sample piccola does not override those choices. Almeno una finestra del font controls opening and closing behavior, not a simple visibility toggle.
Use font units for pointer and ruler coordinates. Retain complete pixel-per-em and advance-width explanations in prose. Suggestion timing choices are Subito, A mouse fermo and Con un breve ritardo. Spacing choices are Ottica, Neurale, Stretta and Personalizzata. Naming choices are Leggibili, Di produzione and Alternativi in preferences; dialog labels may use singular forms.
PreviewPanel uses Crenatura in anteprima, Avvicinamento in anteprima, Master dell’anteprima, Istanza dell’anteprima and Interpolazione dell’anteprima. Its transforms use Inclinazione, Allungamento and Peso; the fill and blur controls are Riempi anteprima and Sfoca anteprima. Use Cascata di testo / Cascata di glifi and the panel-specific Imposta il sistema di scrittura del testo / Imposta la lingua del testo.
Match Mantieni collegamenti ai vecchi nomi for TTH stems and singular Mantieni collegamento ai vecchi nomi for zones. Stroke controls use Giunzione ad angolo and Limite di giunzione ad angolo; cap and dash help must describe the verified stroke behavior, even where old source help was copied from color controls. The Scissors sub-tool is Cappio.
Repeated English help may describe controls with different Italian names. Keep Angolo in Bar_SingleNode and Angolare in InspectorNode; describe the node type as angolare in prose. Keep WidgetBrush Pennello gomma and Bar_Brush Pennello per cancellare. Their shared Stem tool reference is Asta. Info_Creator’s Vendor Name is Nome fornitore.
DlgFeaturesSelector uses Predefinito for its default language and ICU script names such as Latin. The layer tree uses Reticolo for its wireframe state. Corner and curve tension references use Tensione dell’angolo and Tensione della curva. A stroke’s miter limit is a factor of stroke width, not a length in font units.
Easy-to-read and plain writing¶
Use easy-to-read Italian where the reader needs the simplest possible text: onboarding, error recovery, accessibility notes and support replies to someone who is stuck. Plain writing applies the same habits more lightly to all help. Neither overrides the terminology decisions or the address and register rules above. Where the Italian edition of the European easy-to-read guidelines differs from this page, this page wins for FontLab, and the edition's form is for dedicated easy-to-read material.
The Italian edition calls the format facile da leggere e da capire; its chapter on written information also uses informazioni accessibili. It addresses writers with voi (Usate frasi brevi) and offers tu, voi or lei for speaking to readers directly. FontLab keeps tu. Its core rules follow the shared baseline: one idea per sentence, each sentence on a new line, active rather than passive verbs, and positive instructions, as in devi rimanere fino alla fine rather than non devi andartene prima della fine. Use one word for one thing, and explain a difficult word where it first appears. Its idioms to avoid are sei una lumaca! and siamo 4 gatti.
The rules specific to Italian:
- Prefer the present tense. When the past is necessary, use the passato prossimo rather than the passato remoto: ha salvato, not salvò.
- Prefer the indicative and the imperative to the conditional and the subjunctive. A hypothetical such as se il file fosse aperto stays when the meaning needs it.
- Never use Roman numerals.
- Write dates in full: martedì 13 ottobre 2026, not 13.10.2026. Interface dates keep their locale format.
For FontLab help, the baseline rules that matter most are these. Spell out or explain a sigla: UE is the Unione europea. Avoid ecc., p.es. and special characters such as & and §, even though the abbreviation rules above allow some of them in ordinary prose. Replace a percentage or a large number with alcuni or molti only when the reader does not need the exact value; settings and limits keep their numbers. Keep a foreign word only when Italian readers know it well, as they know baby sitter. Never leave needed information in a footnote.