German localization guide¶

Use these rules with the localization principles, Qt interface rules and German language guide. They describe current practice, not a sequence of earlier review passes.

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.

Current terminology¶

German for Germany; Austrian and Swiss variants need their own locale decisions.

The German term table, generated from localization/de-core.tmx, is the current terminology authority. Use its definitions to select the right concept and its notes for grammar and usage. An approved term stays consistent across the UI, help and manual. A proposed term is a candidate awaiting review; its presence does not establish linguistic approval. Historical translations do not override a current entry.

For references to the FontLab interface, use the current TS catalog in the same control context. Reconcile a conflicting core entry with that catalog before regenerating the term table. Keep dated before/after evidence in the existing fl10n review ledgers and Git history. For a missing term, use the supplied fallback original term and definition to make a supported proposal. Never change its status merely because a translation reads fluently.

Follower node terminology¶

Use Folgeknoten for singular and plural, also as the compact UI label; use Folgeknoten X and Folgeknoten Y for the axis variants. The compound names a node that follows the movement of leading key nodes. In prose use Folgeknoten and Folgeknoten-Verhalten. Interpret legacy English Servant as Follower in this physical sense. The earlier fan/supporter reading is obsolete. Keep English source keys unchanged. The house term is formed from folgen; its physical sense is documented in Duden.

Sharp nodes¶

Use spitz for sharp geometry and spitzer Knoten for a sharp node, never Spitzenknoten. Inflect the adjective: einen spitzen Knoten, spitze Knoten, an spitzen Knoten. Image sharpening is a different operation: schärfen.

Thickness depends on the control¶

Use Dicke for general thickness, Strichdicke for confirmed stroke thickness, and Stammstärke for confirmed stem thickness. The English label may be just Thickness: read the surrounding controls and their actual function before choosing. A stroke-width control and a stem-width control must keep distinct labels. Inflect the term within the complete sentence.

Register and address¶

Use Sie in product help, dialogs and support, with Sie, Ihnen and Ihr capitalized. A campaign or community surface may use du when its brief says so; keep the choice consistent through a whole surface.

Short commands use the infinitive: Datei öffnen, Pinsel zu Konturen. Longer instructions in help use the polite imperative: Öffnen Sie die Datei. Neither needs the English subject. Product messages drop the first person; the company's own prose (Vielen Dank, dass Sie FontLab testen) keeps a warmer register and is identified as such before translation.

Questions stay natural: Möchten Sie die Änderungen speichern? Do not turn a polite subjunctive into an indicative fact.

Headline style in compact strings¶

English UI strings are compressed; carry that over. No article, no copula in a label: Wenn Maske aktiv, not Wenn die Maskenebene aktiv ist; wenn neue Dickte kleiner als aktuelle; Gleiche Farbmarke wählen. Drop padding the English carries only because it had room: Reset to default is Zurücksetzen; Select OCR languages to enable is OCR-Sprachen auswählen.

Drop the verb where the reader supplies it. Pinsel in Konturen umwandeln becomes Pinsel zu Konturen; the pattern covers every conversion: Zu Komponente, Referenz zu Komponente, Schnittmenge aus Konturen.

Explanatory prose keeps its grammar. A verbless label must still be unambiguous on screen: Skalieren can be a command or a heading, so check the running interface, and compare against the Measurements panel rule that no German label may be longer than the English one (UC, lc stay; a fixed term one character longer, such as Oberlänge for Ascender, is recorded as an exception).

Compact command forms¶

Use hinzu for add in compact buttons, menus, dialog titles and history labels: Achse hinzu, Schlauen Filter hinzu, Glyphen zur Klasse hinzu. Keep the object's case and number. This is an intentional house abbreviation, not a general replacement inside sentences: FontLab kann Features hinzufügen keeps the verb. A sentence quoting a control uses its exact label, „Glyphen hinzu“ erzeugt die fehlenden Glyphen. Apply the choice to every plural form.

Let the surrounding interface carry repeated context: Werte runden auf in a kerning dialog, Toleranz in Vektorisieren, Referenzen in an element menu. Omit an implied action: Nach links, In den Papierkorb, X-Zuordnung nach Y. Keep the full term when the text must stand alone. This permits dropping a source noun that the screen already supplies; it does not permit losing a condition, a direction or the distinction between two controls.

Prefer wenn aus, ein-/aus and Alt: alle Paletten speichern in compact hints. +Alt: Schleife erzeugen records a modifier gesture; Umsch+Ziehen is a compact form of Umschalt+Ziehen. Preserve the key and action. Use a slash for short alternatives (Glyphe / Paar, Grafik einfügen / importieren) and shared endings (Ober-/Unterlänge, Versal-/x-Höhe) where both parts remain clear. Do not replace consequential logical conditions with punctuation.

Choose the grammatical form for the control: Glatt is a state, Glätten an action; Umbruch names the setting. Short forms such as Live, Weitere Infos and vorläufig installieren can work on their reviewed controls. The last does not replace the exact lifetime, bis zum Beenden von FontLab, where a reader needs it. Start continuation labels in lowercase where their sentence calls for it: nach Namen, hier ablegen.

Matching, actions and wordplay¶

Use Synchronsprecher for Matchmaker and Synchronsprecher-Werkzeug for its tool label. The dubbing-actor word plays on synchron; the surrounding help must still explain matching masters. Keep this family together:

English role	German
Match Masters / Match Kerning	Master synchron / Kerning synchron
Matching operation in prose	Master synchronisieren / Kerning synchronisieren
Matching masters / axes	synchrone Master / Achsen
Auto-matching	Autosynchronisierung
Match Edits	Synchrones Arbeiten
Match Moves	Synchrone Verschiebungen
Audit Match	Synchronisierung prüfen

These forms describe correspondence or coordinated editing, not network synchronization. Master-Kompatibilität still names the interpolation requirement; Variationskompatibilität remains valid explanatory language. Do not translate every unrelated occurrence of match as synchron.

Prefer umwandeln for conversion, balancieren for Balance and unbalanciert for Unbalanced, Kontur brechen for Break contour, Auto-Zurichtung for Autospacing and kernen as the verb. Use Erneut for Repeat last command, keeping Redo (Wiederholen) and Echo text (Text wiederholen) distinct. Knoten-Links is the Node Links label; it does not rename every kind of Verknüpfung. Removing metrics links is Metriken entknüpfen.

The copy-text labels Leer zeichen getrennt and Komma,getrennt illustrate their separators. Preserve that deliberate, local wordplay when quoting those controls; ordinary German still writes Leerzeichen. A typo such as under for unter does not establish a spelling preference.

Terminology decisions that generalize¶

One meaning, one translation. Where a concept had two renderings, the shorter and more elegant one won everywhere, including help and manual: dicktenneutral, Geviertauflösung, Dezimalkoordinaten, Text wiederholen, Schubs, Zusammenklappen, Schnittmenge, Pflichtglyphen.
No added specificity. pair is Paar, not Kerningpaar; cloud is Wolke; references are Referenzen; element references may also be Referenzen when the element context is already visible; mask is Maske even though a FontLab mask is a layer. Compounds are where translators add detail by reflex.
Width has four German words. Advance width is Dickte; geometric width Breite; the width axis Weite (Schriftweite only where the short form is ambiguous); tracking Laufweite. Sidebearings: Vorbreite, Nachbreite.
Weight and thickness are distinct. Translate Weight as Stärke in UI strings, including the weight axis. In clarifying strings, Strichstärke may be used for Weight. Use Stärkenklasse and Stärkewert. Thickness is Dicke generically, Strichdicke for strokes and Stammstärke for stems, even when the source label omits the noun. Use Standardstammstärke for its measurement and Standardstamm for the stem itself. When help quotes a UI label, keep Stärke.
UPM is Geviertauflösung: units per em, the em being the Geviert. Descender to UPM is a distance and reads Unterlänge bis Gevierthöhe. PPM is Pixel pro Geviert in prose and stays PPM in compact hinting and rasterization fields. UPM height from descender is Gevierthöhe ab Unterlänge, not a resolution setting.
Professional loans stay: Kerning, Master, Hinting, Lookup, Tracking in the axis sense is Laufweite though. Kerning over Unterschneidung, because the UI, the manual and the literature say so.
Panels are Panels; a Fenster is a window.
smart is *schlau, inflected: *schlaue Ecke, Schlauen Filter hinzu. Clever with a hint of Bauernschläue; never intelligent, which now reads as a claim about AI.
Feature names follow the house voice: operations with a fixed technical meaning keep their name (oblique, Flex, OT Def); Power names are playful power (Power-Schubs, Power-Pinsel, Power-Strich, Power-Hilfslinie); smart is schlau; Genius, Follower, Cousins, Skin and Sketchboard take a plain native word where one is attested, otherwise translate the fallback original term in the term table (the Fallback column). See the feature-name rules.
Overshoot is Überstand; old style figures are Mediävalziffern; stem is Stamm and its thickness is Stammstärke; a drawn stroke is Strich and its thickness is Strichdicke; check the term table.
Standard commands follow the platform: Abbrechen, Kopieren, Einfügen, Rückgängig, Wiederholen, Beenden, Einstellungen, Im Finder anzeigen. Qt's own qtbase_de catalog uses the same words.

For points, use Punkt außerhalb der Kurve in explanation and Punkte außer Kurve in the compact display label. Anfasserpunkt remains appropriate for the reviewed drawing-tool hint; Knoten auf der Kurve names the on-curve node. Use Autohinting and TT-Autohinting, including action labels.

Compounds, loanwords and spelling¶

Ordinary compounds stay closed: Dicktenausdruck, Dateiname, Schriftfamilie. FontLab UI names deliberately use Schrift-Fenster, Glyphen-Fenster and Kontur-Werkzeug, with the same hyphen for other -Werkzeug names, including Synchronsprecher-Werkzeug. Use Strich-Eigenschaften, Element-Transformation and Glyphennamen-Suffix where these labels occur. This is a readability convention for named UI objects, not permission to hyphenate every German compound. A compound whose first part is a thinly loaned English word is hyphenated: Kerning-Klasse, Kerning-Paar, Demo-Modus, Master-Dickten, Code-Editor, Stil-Gruppe, Element-Referenz, OpenType-Feature. The test: would a native reader see one word, or a borrowed word with a suffix? An exact UI name takes precedence over that general test; Frei Transformieren keeps its reviewed label capitalization.

A protected product name keeps its spelling: in FontLab, Einstellungen von Vexy Lines. Compact German UI compounds may join the unchanged brand with a hyphen, as in FontLab-Konto and FontLab-Projekt. Do not expand an established compact label solely to avoid that hyphen. Borrowed nouns take the established gender and endings: der Server, des Servers, des Ordners; do not apply a universal -s plural. Borrowed verbs conjugate as German: gechattet, der gelikte Beitrag. Keep ß and umlauts; in capitals STRASSE or STRAẞE, never a blanket ẞ.

Capitalize nouns and nominalized verbs, including in headings: Exportieren einer Datei. Do not copy English title case onto adjectives.

Facts for reviewers¶

Plurals: one (1) and other; Qt numerus strings carry two forms. Test 0, 1, 2 and 21.
Numbers: 1.234.567,89; four-digit numbers grouped (1.234); 25 % with a space; short date 05.03.26, long 5. März 2026; ordinals 1..
Expansion: plan for a tenth to a third more in sentences and up to double in single words (Bearbeiten for Edit); compact panels still obey the length rule.
Mnemonics: Datei takes D, Bearbeiten B, Ansicht A, Hilfe H. One & per label, unique per menu, on a letter present in the German, never ä ö ü ß.
Key names: Umschalt (Shift), Strg (Ctrl, Windows), Befehlstaste or ⌘ (macOS), Eingabe (Enter), Rücktaste (Backspace), Entf (Delete), Esc. Take them from the platform.
Quotation marks: „…“ with ‚…‘ inside. Straight quotes stay in code.
False friends: billion is Milliarde; Billion is 10¹². Typeface is Schriftart; font the file is Schrift or Font by the term table. Phone does not silently become Smartphone. Hinweis is a note to the reader; Notiz is a note the reader writes.
Case: never let code uppercase a translated string (ß). Umlauts sort as base letters in dictionary order; phone-book order is a different rule.
Claims: preserve the scope and evidence of comparisons. Flag unsupported claims for the responsible owner.

Placeholders and agreement¶

Keine or Kein follows the gender of a noun the string never names; %1 existiert bereits. Ersetzen? hides a pronoun. Recast as label and value, or ask for one string per case. Verb-final word order means a trailing space or a sentence fragment cannot be translated: report the assembly, and where a prefix cannot move, use a colon: Widerrufen: Ausschneiden.

Review the German¶

First compare source and target: omissions, added specificity, changed conditions, quantities, placeholders, markup, mnemonics, numerus forms. Then read the German as German: does a compact label mean one thing, does a help paragraph move from the object through the action to its result, is the register steady? Recheck the facts after any stylistic edit. Classify findings by MQM family and severity; record every change with before, after and reason. Report only checks performed; do not claim native review or a runtime test without evidence.

Nudge terminology¶

Nudge is Schubs (verb schubsen); Power Nudge is Power-Schubs (verb power-schubsen). These house decisions were updated on 30 September 2026.

Rapid tool and Quick Help references¶

The tool name is Rapid. Use Mit Rapid zeichnen for Rapid draw and Mit Rapid bearbeiten for Rapid edit. Keep the name distinct from ordinary descriptions of speed and from the Vertical rapid and Horizontal rapid contrast classifications. Do not use Rapidograph as the tool name.

Keep Rapid in Latin letters; inflect the surrounding tool or action wording.

For Quick Help, match tool, panel, option and command references to the current TS catalog in the same control context. Keep inflection natural in sentences. If a core entry differs, reconcile it with the catalog before regenerating phrasebooks. A compact UI label and its full prose explanation can differ. Check the current English conditions and consequences: disabling Cloud also disables mark/mkmk generation, and mark generation requires Cloud. Preserve mark and mkmk as literal OpenType feature tags.

For Quick Help, preserve control-specific names. Force is Kraft in Warp and Intensität in the generic action parameters. Font Dimensions is Schriftabmessungen in the Layers and Masters panel and Schriftmaße in the main menu. The Stem tool is Stamm-Werkzeug (or Stamm in a tool reference). Legacy Quick Help calls this tool Thickness; the current action still uses the internal ThicknessTool class. Use Strichdicke for the stroke property, and Stammstärke for stem measurements.

Use Regeln for the Lookups panel, but Lookup-Daten for the data being compiled. Quote Schrift › Live › Live-Metriken and Live-Auto-Ebenen in menu paths. Metric field names retain LSB and RSB, with Vorbreite and Nachbreite in explanations. Preserve literal shortcut tokens in the supplied help templates. A grammatical UI fragment such as Einheiten beträgt must not replace the unit noun Einheiten in running text. Accurate prose expansions such as Geviertauflösung remain valid where no compact label is being quoted.

Keep style-link selector values in English: Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. The application inserts these runtime strings without translation. Likewise, Unicode tooltip script and category names come from ICU in English. A translated catalog entry does not establish a translated runtime value. The Lookups panel’s add/remove lookup controls refer to Lookup, even where legacy English Quick Help incorrectly says feature.