Global Writing

Overview

Applying these basic principles will make your content more accessible for US customers and more effective for a global audience, both in English and when localized to other languages.

For specification localization guidelines, please refer to our localization resources.

Content principles

• Keep it simple. Break up long, complex sentences into shorter, simple sentences. It’s better for English, and it’s easier to translate.
• Use everyday words. Replace jargon and buzzwords with common English words.
• Keep global customers in mind. Culturally specific references, idioms, and metaphors lose meaning even when they can be translated literally. At worst, they may take on offensive meaning in another culture.
• Remember that copy will be longer when translated. Keep within the recommended word or character count limits. Depending on the language, text can expand 30% to 300%.
• Don’t embed text into images. When words are embedded into an image file, the text cannot be localized. Keep text in images as HTML; otherwise, a whole new image file must be created for localization. That adds cost, slows down the localization workflow, and it’s bad for accessibility and SEO.
• Speak like a person. Be respectful, approachable, and genuine. Keep context and culture in mind: conversational doesn’t mean casual or colloquial. Many cultures place more importance on politeness than the United States.

Style

Use simple, declarative sentences in the present tense. Make the subject and verb clear, and avoid using long strings of modifiers and clauses. It’s easier for translation tools to translate accurately.

• Break up ideas into shorter sentences.

• Use lists. They’re easier to scan. Make the construction parallel in bulleted lists.

Use simple words

Avoid complex words and noun strings (a string of several nouns that create a phrase) when simpler alternatives will do.

Noun strings are very difficult to localize. In German and Dutch, for example, noun strings become one long word. The translation becomes hard to scan or incomprehensible. It also poses design issues, especially in mobile views, buttons, tabs, and narrow web components.

In the example below, what exactly should the customer refer to, the Site Server, the LDAP Service, the directory, the server, the directory server?

Breaking up the noun string (Site Server LDAP Service directory server) into two separate, shorter nouns (directory and LDAP server) clarifies exactly what the customer should refer to. It also brings the relevant noun (directory) closer to the instruction (Please refer to), making it easier to scan and understand.

Use terms consistently

We use a number of terms frequently on dot-com and in product interfaces, including product noun phrases, industry terms, and UI nomenclatures such as button names, menu items, calls to action, and navigational labels. Using these terms consistently helps the translation memory database and improves the speed and quality of localization.

Note: Some products have more than one product noun phrase. Use the recommended phrases rather than create new ad hoc terms. Example:

When you encounter extremely long product noun phrases, you may break them up as you would noun strings, but do maintain the primary SEO phrase. Please consider the context and the main purpose of the product, in consultation with the Search team (search.team@autodesk.com). Example:

Use consistent spelling and capitalization

We use American English spelling. Don’t capitalize words for emphasis; translators will assume it indicates a proper noun and translate accordingly.

See also the Word list. For words that are not on the word list, use the first spelling listed in Merriam-Webster Online.

See also Capitalization.

Use active voice

In an active sentence, the subject does something. In a passive sentence, something is being done to someone or something, and it’s not always clear who is performing the action.

Use gerunds sparingly

The English language is rich in gerunds, words that end in –ing. Gerunds can represent many different parts of speech, which can make them complex for machine translation. Examples:

You can usually simplify a sentence and avoid or reduce the number of gerunds.

Avoid negatives and double negatives

In English, some negative constructions such as, “X and Y have never been easier,” mean the opposite: that X and Y are easy. Two negatives can also indicate a positive in English. In some languages, however, a negative always means a negative, and two negatives simply emphasize the negative.

Double negatives are particularly difficult to localize. For example, in English not uncommon means that something is common. But translated to some languages, it could mean extremely uncommon or very rare because the first negative (not) would emphasize the second negative (uncommon).

You can often rephrase a negative, a conditional negative (such as unless, until, except, and so on), or a double negative with the simpler, positive construction.

Use that and which

Though we often omit that and which in speech, in written text they can add much-needed clarity. Include that or which, especially in long clauses or when there’s more than one clause.

Define abbreviations and acronyms

In general, do not use abbreviations in text, and spell out acronyms on the first instance in body copy. Globally understood terms, such as 3D, don’t need to be spelled out. But be sure that the acronym really is a global term. If in doubt, spell it out.

It’s especially important to spell out the first instance of an acronym for localizing into non-Western languages. Even in languages that use the Western alphabet, that language may use a translated or a completely different industry term, not the US terminology, in which case an English acronym (like CAM) may not make sense by itself.

Exceptions

For system requirements and numerical terms, abbreviations are preferred. See Numbers for more detail.

Think globally

Our customers live in many different countries. Speaking to a culturally diverse audience ensures that we won’t exclude non-US customers.

Avoid US-centric references

Avoid US cultural references and words like foreign and domestic. Something German may be foreign to someone in the US, but it isn’t foreign to our German customers.

Don’t assume nation means the US to all customers.

Keep in mind that not all types of US offer details may apply in every country.

Avoid jargon, buzzwords, and idioms

Jargon, buzzwords, and idiomatic expressions derive meaning from cultural context. For this reason, they don’t localize well. They can even take on unintended or offensive meanings in other cultures. Examples:

Avoid clever headlines

Like buzzwords and idioms, clever headlines don’t localize easily. They may sound cool or funny in English, but end up awkward to global audiences and in translation. For most types of content, stick to concrete, straightforward language.

For a list of specific words to avoid, see Buzzwords.

Note: If you’re creating a global marketing campaign, please contact the Marketing Localization team (marketing.localization@autodesk.com) three to four weeks before global publication. It can help make sure that your campaign’s concept, theme, and emotions are culturally adapted to local target markets.

Be aware of text expansion

Follow the maximum character or word counts for your project. Expect at least a 30% increase after translation. The shorter the content type—such as button names, UI labels, and headlines—the greater the expansion, as much as 300%.

Text expansion isn’t just about character count. Non-Western languages can require more vertical or horizontal space per character, even when they sometimes use fewer characters. Example:

Source: WC3 Internationalization

The tables below show average character count increases and text (spatial) expansion after translation.

Number of characters (English)	Average character count increase
Up to 10	200%–300%
11–20	180%–200%
21–30	160%–180%
31–50	140%–160%
51–70	151%–170%
Over 70	130%

References

Internal references

Autodesk Translation Style Guides – for translators (access required)

External references

Bytelevel – web globalization glossary

Global by Design

W3C Internationalization