Dear Translators: We've made another step on the way to making all aspects of BfW as professional as possible. This step was adopting correct typography and a consistent style. To start, please look at the US-English typography style guide on the Wesnoth wiki: http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Typography_Style_Guide
In summary, now that we have Unicode support and Pango HTML-style markup, the old way of emphasizing text (*like this*) or by using CAPITAL LETTERS can be replaced with <i>, <b>, <big> and <small> tags. We're using sexed single and double quotes instead of the plain ASCII ' and " characters, and the correct styles of dashes instead of the ASCII hyphen-minus. We're also standardizing on three-dot ellipses and no more than two ?! characters in any one exclamation, no matter how incredulous. I've also advised toning back characters' death rattles a bit. No longer 'AAAAAIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!', just 'AAAIGHH!!' or similar, which is enough to give the right idea without going over the top. The rules for US- and UK-English typography are broadly the same. For other languages, you'll have your own correct style conventions, and we're now officially asking that you start following them, if you're not already. This applies to all the areas discussed in the wiki article - assuming they're applicable in your language. So, sexed quotes, ellipses, dashes, exclamations and questions, 'stage directions', 'sound effects', emphasis, numbers, and quoted dialogue. Please don't just assume you know what the rules are, look them up from a reputable language authority. In most languages, the exact rules will be just as precise as the English rules are, and in some cases even more so. For many European languages, the typography rules will remain close to those for English, but I don't believe any other language copies our typography rules exactly. By all means create a version of the typography style guide for your own language and share it around or add it to the wiki. Simons Mith, a technical writer, finds that in the limited areas it covers, the English typography style guide is as rigorous as you would find in many professional publications. Warm regards, Espreon and Simons Mith
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