Portuguese (Portugal) style guide¶
Use Portuguese as written in Portugal for this edition. Share the grammar, message contracts and keyboard review on the Brazilian page where no local difference applies. The conventions below take precedence for Portugal.
Address and register¶
For general product help, use a direct third-person verb form while normally omitting você: Abra o ficheiro. or Pode guardar as alterações. This is the house choice for this edition. Do not imply that Portuguese has only one acceptable form of address. A brief for a different audience may use tu or another treatment; keep the corresponding verbs, pronouns and possessives consistent.
Use an explicit subject when it distinguishes actors. O administrador pode alterar esta definição does not promise that every reader has that permission. A possessive can clarify whose work is at risk; do not delete it merely to shorten a sentence. Apply the common agreement and inclusion guidance without changing a person into a group.
Match the passage’s register. Technical prose should be direct and precise; a marketing convention does not require playful error messages. Shorten a cumbersome expression only when meaning survives: não pode can suggest a prohibition, whereas não é possível can describe a limitation. Context decides.
Regional words and spelling¶
Use ficheiro, guardar, ecrã, palavra-passe, utilizador, definições and aceder a for the corresponding concepts. Brazilian words such as arquivo or senha are not errors in their own edition. Keep approved terminology and literal interface labels rather than replacing them from a general word list.
Use a consistent spelling convention and check disputed forms against a dictionary for Portugal. Caráter and carácter are accepted alternatives under the spelling agreement; do not mark the second spelling universally wrong. A product glossary may select one form for consistency. Do not change code identifiers or a person’s name in a spelling cleanup.
A noun relationship can need de: gravador de áudio identifies what is recorded. Computador multimédia describes the computer. Do not insert or remove de across every noun cluster mechanically. The shared article and modifier guidance preserves scope, gender and number.
Instructions, progress and failures¶
Use an imperative for a step addressed to the reader and an infinitive for a compact action label. Source punctuation alone cannot tell you which is intended.
| Meaning | Portuguese wording |
|---|---|
| Action label | Guardar ficheiro |
| Instruction | Guarde o ficheiro. |
| In progress | A guardar o ficheiro. |
| Completed | O ficheiro foi guardado. |
| Failed attempt | Não foi possível guardar o ficheiro. |
| Present limitation | Não é possível guardar o ficheiro. |
The a plus infinitive construction is a common choice for progress. It is not a ban on every gerund in Portuguese. Preserve the event’s tense, mood and state, including a past failure or a future condition.
Keep all affected people in a warning: Se reiniciar agora, poderá perder o trabalho não guardado, tal como outras pessoas que utilizam este computador. Keep the consequence conditional. A concise error such as Erro ao abrir o ficheiro is useful only when it says enough about the actual failure. Do not prescribe restarting, infer a cause or promise recovery without evidence.
When adapting marketing, preserve classmates or collaborators, supported devices and required software when they affect the claim. Pode ajudar is not a guarantee of productivity. A lost computer is not merely a computer temporarily out of reach. The regional vocabulary and exact-action guidance applies to these meaning checks too.
Capitalization and punctuation¶
Use sentence case for new text: Opções de exportação, Guardar como. Preserve an existing label exactly when referring to it. Do not capitalize every translated word because the English label is one word or uses title case. Keep accents on capitals: ÁREA, Últimos ficheiros.
Use «…» for quoted prose in this edition, with “…” for an inner quotation. Code keeps required straight quotes. Preserve punctuation that belongs to a real interface label. Use a period for a full sentence and omit it from a compact action label; the presence of a period does not decide whether the verb should be imperative or infinitive.
An abbreviation such as n.º includes a period before the ordinal indicator º. Do not substitute a degree sign °. Use established abbreviations and keep unit symbols separate from them. Follow the shared technical notation: −18 °C uses a mathematical minus, not an en dash. Nonbreaking spaces are allowed in web text when they keep a value and unit together.
Numbers and regional scale¶
Use a decimal comma in ordinary prose: 12,5 mm. A euro amount can be 12,50 €. Keep a nonbreaking space between the value and its unit or currency symbol, and use the application’s locale formatter for dynamic values. This edition uses 25 % in technical prose. Literal input, versions and identifiers retain their required syntax.
In Portugal, mil milhões means 1,000,000,000 and um bilião means 1,000,000,000,000. English 16,000,000,000 therefore becomes 16 mil milhões, not 16 biliões. Check the numeric value before changing a scale name; Brazilian bilhão and Portuguese bilião do not name the same quantity in these conventions.
Use a written date such as 13 de setembro de 2026 when numeric order could be ambiguous. Do not impose this prose format on a machine-readable timestamp. Preserve the original amount, unit and precision throughout the format review.
Narration¶
Use natural Portuguese pronunciation for the intended audience and approved pronunciation for product names. A speaker does not need a perfect UK or US accent to read a borrowed term. Verify unfamiliar abbreviations with the audience or subject specialist instead of copying an old phonetic catalog.
Speak the characters that a listener needs to reproduce an address, code or shortcut. Follow audiovisual guidance for timing, captions and information conveyed only by an image.