Polish (Poland) style guide¶
Use this page for Polish product writing. Follow the shared registers, mechanics and localization review. Local grammar, spelling and typography take precedence where they differ. Use technical terms for a technical task; friendliness does not require vague wording.
Matching masters for interpolation¶
Use dopasować for the action, pasować for the state: Dopasuj mastery, Dopasuj kerning, Mastery pasują, Mastery nie pasują. Status labels are Pasują and Nie pasują; the participle is dopasowane, adjectives are pasujące and niepasujące, nouns are dopasowanie and niedopasowanie. Never use pasuj as a command or pasowanie as the noun. Do not change Dopasuj where it translates another operation, such as Fit.
The tool is Swatka, feminine: Swatki, Swatkę, Swatką. The everyday phrase pasować do siebie describes a couple that is a good match; dopasować names the action from the same stem, and Swatka is a matchmaker.
These terms apply when masters are matched for interpolation. Keep the current translations of master, kerning and all other terms; inflect the match term and follow the command form already used in the file. Tool names are proper nouns and start with a capital letter. Preserve placeholders, accelerator marks, punctuation, capitalization style and file format. Keep English source strings, German and other languages unchanged. If the source says compatible, retain the translation of compatible. Leave other senses, such as search matching, and uncertain senses unchanged. This decision supersedes earlier terms for this sense, including compatibility and synchronization wording.
Address and grammatical gender¶
For general product help, address the reader with a second-person singular verb: Otwórz plik. or Możesz zapisać zmiany. Usually omit ty because the verb identifies the person. Keep a pronoun when it distinguishes actors. This is the house default, not a rule for every formal letter or audience.
When a direct-address pronoun is needed in this edition, use Ty, Tobie and Twój consistently. Treat that capitalization as an editorial convention for addressing the reader, not capitalization for every third-person reference. A formal support exchange may use Pan or Pani when appropriate to the recipient. Do not assemble mechanical forms such as Pan(i) when a natural sentence can avoid them.
Many past-tense and adjectival forms mark gender: zrobiłeś, zrobiłaś, zalogowany, zalogowana. Do not infer the reader’s gender from English you. A wording such as Nie pamiętasz hasła? can work for a password-recovery link. For a past failure, preserve the past event with Nie udało się zapisać pliku. rather than changing the time merely to avoid a gendered ending.
Use a real person’s name, pronouns and chosen form of address. Grammatical gender is not personal identity. A neutral phrase such as osoba odpowiedzialna can help, but a collective or plural may change who is responsible. Keep an administrator’s role explicit when a permission applies only to that role. See accessible content.
Meaning and word choice¶
Use the approved term for the actual product concept. Dokonać wyboru can often become wybrać, but a shorter phrase must keep its object, condition and force. Napotkać problem and znaleźć problem can mean encountering and discovering a problem; they are not universal replacements. Natychmiastowy does not mean intuicyjny.
A feature that helps someone reach a goal does not guarantee success. A setting that makes a program run in a particular way is more specific than a configuration that merely permits running. Preserve these distinctions when rewriting stiff sentences. Keep conditions, quantities and required actions when splitting or combining them.
Keep real names and objects. In a context with a female speaker, I’d told Stella about that old bridesmaid’s dress can become Powiedziałam wcześniej Stelli o tej starej sukience druhny. Use a form consistent with the actual speaker and surrounding sequence. The English sentence alone does not establish the speaker’s gender. Do not replace Stella with Sylwia or the dress with a scout uniform.
Adapt a fictional example only when the brief permits it. In a gesture lesson, odtwórz pokazane gesty can tell the reader to reproduce gestures; śledź gesty may only tell them to watch. Determine the intended interaction and retain it. Follow interface actions instead of changing every kliknij to wybierz.
Inflection, modifiers and ownership¶
Inflect Polish nouns and modifiers for their role: otwórz folder, zawartość folderu, w folderze. Keep agreement: zaznaczony obiekt, zaznaczona warstwa, zaznaczone obiekty. Store relevant gender and inflection information with uncertain terminology rather than copying a damaged declension catalog.
Adjective position depends on the meaning and the established term. Dysk twardy is a conventional term; it does not prove that every technical adjective must follow its noun. Preserve the approved wording of a compound and make long noun relationships explicit.
A category noun can preserve an exact product name while carrying the case ending: w programie FontLab, ustawienia programu FontLab. Use it when it prevents ambiguity or protects a literal name. Do not prepend program, funkcja or polecenie to every label regardless of context.
Distinguish a person from software with a similar name. Edytory can refer to software editors; a word referring to people may need different agreement and inflection. Do not apply an inanimate plural rule to every occupation or capitalize every generic software noun.
Use swój when the owner is the clause’s subject: Otwórz swój plik. Its form agrees with the possessed object: swoją kopię, swoje pliki. It does not resolve every ambiguous owner across a complex sentence. Keep an explicit owner when jej plik, jego plik or another person’s name carries a distinction.
Message states and variables¶
Choose wording for what actually happened. A label, a command, progress and a result are different messages.
| Meaning | Polish wording |
|---|---|
| Action label | Zapisz plik |
| Instruction | Zapisz plik. |
| In progress | Zapisywanie pliku. |
| Completed | Zapisano plik. |
| Failed attempt | Nie udało się zapisać pliku. |
| Present limitation | Nie można zapisać pliku. |
Keep uncertainty and everyone affected in a warning: Jeśli teraz ponownie uruchomisz komputer, Ty i inne korzystające z niego osoby możecie utracić niezapisaną pracę. Do not invent a cause, restart requirement or recovery promise. A short phrase such as Za mało pamięci can be enough when context supplies the failed operation. Use a complete sentence when a fragment would remove important timing or responsibility.
A question ends with a question mark: Czy chcesz kontynuować? A confirmation such as Czy na pewno chcesz usunąć plik? may carry an additional request for certainty. Do not add a period after it because it appears in an error dialog. Follow interface feedback for the message’s function.
Check every substituted value. A stable filename pattern can be Nie udało się otworzyć pliku {name}. The noun pliku supplies the case without changing the filename. It is not a pattern for arbitrary people, product names or lists. Keep parser token names, format specifiers, escapes and markup exact; reordering is allowed only when the format supports it.
Polish count phrases need distinct forms. These examples show why appending a noun to one numeric placeholder is insufficient:
| Count | Phrase |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 plik |
| 2 | 2 pliki |
| 5 | 5 plików |
| 12 | 12 plików |
| 21 | 21 plików |
| 22 | 22 pliki |
A standalone count label such as Liczba plików: 5 can avoid that particular inflection. It cannot replace a count phrase inside every sentence. Use the product’s plural-message mechanism and test zero, teens, larger integers and fractional values in context. Follow messages and variables.
Capitalization and current spelling¶
Use sentence case for new headings and labels: Opcje eksportu. Keep lowercase names of weekdays, months, seasons and languages: poniedziałek, wrzesień, polski. Proper names keep their spelling, and exact interface labels retain their actual case. Preserve diacritics on capitals: ŁÓDŹ, Źródło. Do not turn every word into title case or copy English capitalization blindly.
Apply the spelling rules effective from 1 January 2026. Names of inhabitants of cities and their districts, housing estates and villages now start with a capital, as in Krakowianin. A brand or model used for an individual manufactured item retains its capital, as in Ford. These rules do not authorize changing an identifier or a historically quoted label.
Write nie together with adjectives and adjective-derived adverbs in comparative and superlative forms too: niemilszy, nielepiej. The category and sentence meaning still matter; do not join every occurrence of nie to the next word. Likewise, półżartem, półserio and nibyludowy illustrate joined forms, while a prefix before a capitalized word may need a hyphen.
Some elements that also function as independent words permit both spellings, as in superoferta and super oferta. That is not permission to split every prefix. Paired expressions such as tuż-tuż, tuż, tuż and tuż tuż have permitted alternatives; choose consistently. Check a disputed form against the current spelling rules rather than an old translation memory.
Abbreviations and names¶
Use established abbreviations sparingly: godz., str., zob., m.in., wg. Their periods follow the particular abbreviation; do not truncate arbitrary words at the last consonant. A unit symbol such as min or mm is a different category and has no abbreviation period or plural ending.
Initialisms can have Polish case endings where appropriate: SMS-a, w SMS-ie, with a hyphen and a lowercase ending. An unchanged form can also work in a phrase such as wiadomość SMS. Do not infer one declension pattern for all abbreviations; retain the approved name and explain an unfamiliar initialism when useful.
A localized equivalent must identify the same thing. A foreign tax identifier is not automatically a Polish NIP. Keep official organizations, jurisdictions and form fields distinct. Product names, versions and technical identifiers retain their required spelling and syntax.
Punctuation and line breaks¶
Separate subordinate clauses with commas: Jeśli plik jest otwarty, zamknij go. An ordinary list does not need a comma before its final i or lub, but embedded clauses and other structures can require one. Do not remove commas mechanically whenever a conjunction follows.
Use „…” for a quotation in Polish prose. In Komunikat brzmi: „Plik zapisano”., the final period belongs outside the closing quotation mark. Required straight quotes in code stay straight. Format interface labels using the common mechanics instead of placing every control name in quotation marks.
Do not put spaces inside parentheses. Put the sentence-final period after the closing parenthesis, including for a separate parenthetical sentence: (Zachowaj kopię pliku). Use (Czy masz kopię?) for a question belonging to the parenthetical text. Use a colon to introduce a list when the introductory sentence calls for one. Keep list items parallel: complete sentences take final punctuation, while compact standalone labels normally do not.
Distinguish a hyphen, range dash and mathematical minus: SMS-a, strony 4–6, −18 °C. The negative number has no space after the minus. Use the single ellipsis character … in prose; preserve literal input and actual label punctuation. A quotation omission can be marked […] without altering the quoted claim.
Keep one-letter words with what follows where the output allows it: w folderze, z pliku, i warstwy contain nonbreaking spaces. Preserve these characters in rendered text; do not replace the spaces with visible punctuation or bind whole paragraphs into one unbreakable line.
Numbers, keyboard wording and speech¶
Use a decimal comma in ordinary prose: 12,5 mm. Group a large prose number with spaces where helpful: 20 000. A currency amount can be 12,50 zł. Keep the unit or currency symbol with its value using a nonbreaking space. A version such as 1.2.0 or an input field that requires a decimal point keeps that syntax. Use locale formatting for dynamic values and preserve the amount and unit.
Name the actual key and platform: naciśnij klawisz Enter, strzałka w górę, spacja. An old translated shortcut inventory does not establish what the current product does. Distinguish shortcut keys from access keys, and test collisions, focus order and combinations on the intended keyboard. Do not replace Command with Ctrl across platforms.
For narration, use natural Polish pronunciation and an approved reading of product names. Spell an unfamiliar initialism when that helps the audience. Read every character needed to reproduce a URL, version or command; a technical audience does not justify omitting a meaningful dot. Use the shared audiovisual guidance for captions, timing 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 | procedura |
| Fusion, using the fallback Welder | Spawacz |
| FontAudit, visible name | FontAudit |
| Pin, a named point in an element | pinezka |
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.
Use Elementy i komponenty, Wykryj komponent, Mocny szturch and Spawacz consistently, including their mnemonic-bearing menu forms. Use procedura for the OpenType operation even where another Polish term is attested.
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 Rysowanie narzędziem Rapid. The contrast classifications containing English rapid use the ordinary adjective instead. See the localization guide for the current terminology and source-version checks.
FontLab's movable transformation origin is punkt bazowy; a glyph's fixed coordinate origin is początek układu współrzędnych. Choose the sense from the control and its explanation. Terminology changes also require agreement changes in nearby words: replacing masculine wzorzec with feminine matryca requires z bieżącej matrycy. Preserve the extra information in explanatory help headings even when the corresponding button has a shorter label.
Advance width and other widths¶
In FontLab, advance width is szerokość pola. When the interface names that metric simply Width, use Pole, including Pole: %1, Ustaw pole and Połącz pole. Inflect the term naturally in prose. A box, rectangle, outline or selection has szerokość; the width axis and width class also retain szerokość. Inspect the control’s meaning before changing a label. The Change width action reshapes glyph outlines, so it remains Zmień szerokość rather than taking the metric label.
Easy-to-read and plain writing¶
Use easy-to-read Polish where the reader needs the simplest possible text: onboarding, error recovery, accessibility notes and support replies. Plain writing applies the same habits more lightly to all help. Neither overrides the terminology decisions or the address rules above. Where the Polish 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 Polish edition names the format tekst łatwy do czytania i zrozumienia, often shortened to tekst łatwy do czytania, and gives the English easy-to-read beside it; Polish practice also uses the abbreviation ETR. The edition addresses its reader with lowercase ty and with masculine forms such as Powinieneś and wyjaśniłeś. FontLab keeps the Ty and Twój convention and avoids gendered past forms, as described under address and grammatical gender.
Its core rules follow the shared baseline: short sentences with one idea each, a new line for every sentence, and the active voice, as in Doktor przyśle ci list rather than List zostanie przesłany ci przez doktora. Give positive instructions, use one word for one thing, and explain a hard word where it first appears. Its idiom to avoid is pogoda pod psem; its example of a familiar loan is okej.
The rules specific to Polish:
- Write numbers as digits and never use Roman numerals.
- Avoid ordinals with suffixes such as 5-te spotkanie. Count instead: W tym roku odbyło się już 5 spotkań.
- Prefer the present tense to the past.
- Avoid acronyms, or expand them: PCK is Polski Czerwony Krzyż.
- Write the date in full: wtorek, 13 października 2026, not 13.10.2026 or 2026-10-13. Interface dates and timestamps keep their locale or machine format.
In easy-to-read text, also avoid abbreviations such as tzw. and m.in., although the abbreviation rules above allow them in ordinary prose. Replace a percentage or a large number with mało or wiele only when the reader does not need the exact value; settings and limits keep their numbers. The edition's typography section treats czcionka, font and krój pisma as one thing. Follow the approved FontLab terms for these concepts instead.