Woo grammar, punctuation, and capitalization guide

Following grammar, punctuation, and style guidelines helps keep our presentation consistent. Users have a better experience if they know what to expect and where to find the information they need.

Basics

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To ensure your content aligns with Woo to deliver helpful messages that reach the largest audience, we recommend adhering the following guidelines:

• Be democratic. Some people read every word; some scan and search or prefer video. Help everyone.
• Be focused. Lead with the most important information first in sentences, paragraphs, and sections.
• Be concise. Use plain language and brief sentences.
• Be consistent. Follow the guidelines and style tips below.
• Be specific. Communicate clearly using fewer, simpler words whenever possible.

Guidelines

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Spelling and grammar

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Copy that is free of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes is a sign of polish and professionalism. Great spelling and grammar also help with translation and compatibility with screen readers.

To ensure that your messaging is consistent and accessible:

• Use Merriam-Webster‘s American spelling for all user-facing communications.
• Always check your spelling and grammar before publishing.
• Use tools to help catch mistakes, such as:
  • The spell-check functionality built into Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
  • Grammarly
  • Scribbr
  • QuillBot

Woo vs WooCommerce

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• “Woo” is the name of our company and brand.
• “WooCommerce” is the name of our beloved and popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress (AKA our core product).
• When referring to the company or something the brand does, “Woo” should be used. But when referring to the platform — anything specifically done with or on the platform — it should be “WooCommerce.”

Abbreviations and acronyms

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Write out the full version on the first mention, with the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses. Use the short version for further mentions.

• First use: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS)
• Second use: PCI-DSS

If the abbreviation or acronym is widely known, use it as is. Some examples include but are not limited to:

• API
• FAQ
• HTML
• PHP
• SQL
• SSL

Active voice

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Use active voice at all times. Active voice has a direct, clear tone that allows users to better focus on the written material.

With active voice, the subject performs an action. With passive voice, the subject has an action done to it.

• Active: Latoya downloaded her extension files.
• Passive: The extension files were downloaded by Latoya.

Capitalization and case

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Capitalization should be done sparingly and only under certain circumstances.

• Page titles: Use sentence case.
  • Only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized in blog post and documentation articles.
  • This applies to headlines (h1s) as well as documentation headings (h2s).
• Product names: Capitalize every word of a product name except prepositions and conjunctions.
  • Some product names use CamelCase, including but not limited to WordPress and WooCommerce.
• Sentences: Capitalize the first word and proper nouns.
• Unordered lists: Capitalize the first word of each entry and proper nouns.

Since capitalization should be used sparingly, here are some examples where we recommend using lowercase:

• The word “ecommerce” (not “eCommerce”)
• An email address (michael@thebluthcompany.com)
• A website URL (leftorium.com)

Contractions

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Contractions — such as I’m and there’s — should be used with discretion or avoided completely. This is because contractions:

• Give writing an informal and conversational feel, which may not suit the purpose of your content.
• May not be translated correctly.

Emoji and emoticons

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Plain-text emoticons like 🙂 and Unicode emojis like 😊 should be used with discretion or avoided completely. They are informal and may not be universally interpreted in the way they are intended.

Do not use emoji on Marketplace product pages or in documentation.

Numbers

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Numbers can be written in many different forms. How they should be written depends on the context.

General guidance for numbers

If the number used represents a quantity of a subject or a number in a sequence, you should spell the number in the following instances:

• The number is at the start of a sentence.
• The number is one through nine — unless space is limited (e.g., on social media or email subject lines).

Commas

Use a comma for numbers with more than three digits.

Hyphens

Use a hyphen when spelling out compound numbers up to 100.

Currency

• Use currency codes and not just a currency symbol, as these symbols can be used across multiple currencies.
• Whole amounts need not have a decimal and two places.
• When writing about other currencies, use the appropriate currency symbol and currency code.

Dates

Spell out the day of the week and month.

Decimals

Use decimal points when a number is difficult to convert to a fraction.

Fractions

Spell out fractions, such as one-third.

Percentages

• Spell out the word percent.
• Do not use the % symbol unless space is limited (e.g., on social media or email subject lines).

Phone numbers

• Use hyphens without spaces between numbers.
• Avoid parentheses or periods.
• Include a country code prefix for all countries.

Temperature

• Use the degree symbol with either a capital C abbreviation for Celsius or a capital F abbreviation for Fahrenheit.
• Do not add a space between the symbol and the abbreviation.

Times

• Use numbers 0–12 with lowercase am or pm.
• Including a space between the numbers and am or pm.
• Do not include a period unless at the end of a sentence.
• Use an en dash (–) between a range of times to indicate a period in am or pm.
  • See Dashes and hyphens.
• Use the word to if a range of times spans am and pm.
• Specify a time zone when writing about an event.
  • We use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
• When multiple times are displayed, show the latest first.

Years

Abbreviate decades; do not use apostrophes.

Punctuation

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Ampersands

Ampersands need only be used when part of an official company or brand name. Do not substitute it for the word and.

Apostrophes

• An apostrophe makes a word possessive. Only use an apostrophe if you attend to assign possession to that subject.
• If a word already ends in s and is singular, add an apostrophe before the s.
• If the word ends in s and is plural, add an apostrophe after the s.

Colons

Use a colon to create a short list.

Semicolons

• Semicolons can be used to join two related phrases.
• The phrases should be complete thoughts.

• Their debut solo album hit the Top 10 in 20 countries; it was #1 in Spain.

Commas

• Use a serial comma — also known as an Oxford comma — when compiling a list.
• Use common sense for other cases. Read the sentence out loud and use a comma where clarity or a pause may be needed.

Periods/full stops

Always use a period/full stop at the end of a sentence.

Some special considerations to make when using bulleted lists:

• If a full sentence is listed within a bullet point, it should end with a period.
• If a bulleted list item completes a longer sentence fragment or incomplete sentence, include a period.
• For full sentences combined with fragments, include a period at the end of each item in a mixed list.

For more on period use, see Quotation Marks.

Examples

Dashes and hyphens

• Use a hyphen (-) without spaces on either side to form compound words:
• Use an en dash (–) to indicate a span or range:
• Use an em dash (—) with a space on either side to indicate an aside or emphasis.
  • Use a true em dash — not a hyphen or en dash.

When adding a line break to a sentence containing an em dash, keep the em dash on the preceding line. This is commonly used for placements when space for copy is limited, e.g. a site banner.

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Ellipses

Ellipses can be used to indicate an indefinite ending to a sentence or to show words are omitted when used in brackets […]. Use sparingly.

Exclamations

• Use an exclamation mark/point rarely.
• When using an exclamation, use only one at a time.
• Exclamations follow the same placement convention explained in Periods.
• Periods and exclamations should be:
  • Inside quotation marks.
  • Outside parentheses when the portion in parentheses is part of a larger sentence.
  • Inside parentheses when the part in parentheses can stand on its own.

Question marks

Question marks follow the same placement convention explained in Periods.

Quotation marks

• Periods and commas are placed within quotation marks.
• Question marks within quotes follow logic — if the question mark is part of the quotation, it goes within.
• If you’re asking a question that ends with a quote, it goes outside the quote.
• Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes.

People, places, and things

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Company names and products

• Use brand identity names and products as written on official websites.
• Refer to a company or product as the singular it, not the plural they.

File extensions

• A file extension type should be all uppercase without periods.
• Add a lowercase s to make it plural.
• A specific file should have a lowercase extension type.

Names and titles

• The first mention of a person should include their first and last name.
• Second and consecutive mentions can use the first name only.
• Capitalize job titles, the names of teams, and departments.

Pronouns

• Use he/him/his, she/her/hers, or they/them/theirs as appropriate.
• Don’t use one as a pronoun.
• Use they/them/theirs when referring to a group.

Quotes

Use present tense when quoting someone.

Example

• “I love that WooCommerce is free and flexible,” says Ronald.

Schools

The first time you mention a school, college, or university in a piece of writing, refer to it by its full official name. On all other mentions, use its more common abbreviation.

Cities, states, and countries

• Spell out all city and U.S. state names — don’t abbreviate city names.
• For countries with common abbreviations, write out the first mention; for subsequent mentions, use the abbreviation.

URLs and websites

• Capitalize website and web publication names; do notitalicize them.
• Avoid writing out URLs.
• Omit https://www. where possible.

Slang and jargon

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• Write in plain English.
• The text should be universally understood and easily translated.
• Briefly define technical terms when needed.

Text formatting

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• Use italics to indicate the title of a book, movie, or album.
• Underlined text is reserved for hyperlinks.
• Avoid a mix of italic, bold, caps, and underline.
• If you want to emphasize a word, use italics instead of UPPERCASE.
• Left-align paragraph text, never center or right-align.
• Leave a single space between sentences, never two.

Structure and readability

• Avoid large blocks of text to keep information skimmable and digestible.
• Consider using bulleted or numbered lists when listing three or more items in a paragraph.
• Avoid multiple nested sub-bullets, as this can become visually overwhelming for readers.

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