Style, grammar, and punctuation

• Use the full name of features and apps in customer-facing copy.
• Don’t use 'e.g.', ‘i.e.’, ‘etc.’, or '&' as they're not localization friendly and can be confusing for users of assistive technologies.

• For in-app copy or help articles, use bold when referring to static UI elements like menu items, buttons, or headings.
• If bold is needed but the UI doesn’t support it — for example in a UI message or a flag where the title is already bold — you can use italics.

• Use sentence case in all titles, headings, menu items, labels, and buttons.
• Capitalize proper nouns in headings, such as names of people, companies, or apps.

• Use contractions, where possible, as they convey a conversational, friendly tone.
• Use curly apostrophes in UI copy
  • On a Mac: option + shift + ]
  • On Windows: Control + ' (or alt + 0146)

• If known, use the pronouns a customer provides. If you don’t know, avoid gendered pronouns wherever possible.
• If it’s not possible, use ’they’ or ’their’ rather than ‘his/her’ or ’he/she’.

• Use sentence case. Only capitalize the first word of a sentence, proper nouns, and trademarked names (for example: apps, countries, people's names).
• Don’t use bold or italics.
• Don't use periods.
• Reconsider using question marks. Preferably rephrase the heading so it’s a statement.
• Phrase UI and documentation headings with an action verb.
• Avoid gerunds (the ‘ing’ form of verbs) in UI copy.

• Articles (a, an, the) aren’t always needed in UI headings.
• They're better suited to more conversational sections, like product marketing copy and empty states, as they make these sections more approachable and improve understanding.

• UI elements that might change, like a field name or user input.
• For emphasis if the UI doesn’t support bold. For example, in a flag or UI message.

• Use to list options or when the order of the items doesn’t matter.
• Phrase each item in a parallel way.
• Don’t use commas or periods at the end of each item.

Fragmented sentences

Complete sentences

• If a number starts a sentence, write it out.
• In common expressions, write the number out. For example: It’s one thing after another.
• When writing long-form or formal content, write out numbers one to nine.
• Write out the numbers ‘zero’ and ‘one’ if it could be confused for the letters L, I, or O.

• Avoid truncation whenever possible: shorten UI messages or wrap the text.
• Test your designs using multiple screen widths and magnification levels to ensure it doesn’t truncate.
• If truncation can’t be avoided, for example in user-generated content or icon buttons, use a tooltip to display the full text for accessibility and usability.
• In ADS components that truncate, the ellipsis appears without any space next to the last visible character (for example: Work in pro…).

Do

Shorten or wrap messages.

Don’t

Don’t truncate unless it can’t be avoided.

• Use sentence case, even if the UI element doesn’t use it.
• Use bold to emphasize the UI element in a step.
• If the UI element has an icon, bold both the name and the icon.
• Avoid using a > symbol where possible, as it is read out as “greater than” by assistive technologies, leading to confusion. Use ‘then’ instead.

• puts the emphasis on the person or thing doing an action.
• makes content shorter, clearer, friendlier, and more conversational.

• Minimize the use of pronouns.
• Most of the time they can be avoided. However, when advising a user, indicating that something in the UI is theirs, or in error messages, you can use ‘you’ or ’your’ or ’we’ for a friendlier tone.

• Use an apostrophe to show possession. The apostrophe is placed before the ‘s’ for singular terms and after the ‘s’ for plurals.
• If a word ends in an ‘s’ and is singular, add an ‘s after the ‘s’.
• Use a curly apostrophe for better readability and to differentiate from code.
  • On a Mac: option + shift + ]
  • On Windows: Control + ' (or alt + 0146)

• Use colons to introduce a bulleted list or series of steps.
• Don’t use colons at the end of headings.

• Use dashes in UI content sparingly. If using, use a spaced em dash.
• In long-form content, use them sparingly to show an abrupt change in a sentence — like this. If the break happens in the middle of a sentence —  ike this — use spaced em dashes on either side of the phrase.
• If possible, rewrite the sentence or make 2 sentences to avoid a dash. Clear, concise sentences are better for readability and accessibility.
• Don't use a dash or hyphen for ranges of numbers. Use 'to' instead.
• When adding the space, use non-breaking spaces (option + shift + space) to avoid the dash shifting to a new line.
• To make an em dash:
  • On a Mac: option + shift + hyphen
  • On Windows: Control + Alt + - (or Alt + 0151)

• If a noun is described by 2 or more words, use a hyphen to join those words together so they act as a compound adjective (or compound modifier).
• Exceptions: don’t add a hyphen after the word ‘very’ or adverbs ending in -ly.
• For specific hyphenated word guidance, check Vocabulary (Atlassians only).
• Use a hyphen when not doing so could cause confusion or ambiguity. Consult the Merriam-Webster dictionary if you’re not sure.

• Don’t put spaces in between the periods in an ellipsis.
• Use the symbol for the ellipsis rather than a string of periods:
  • On a Mac: Option + ;
  • On Windows: Ctrl + Alt + . (or Alt + 0133)

• When using an ellipsis to omit part of a long quote, include spaces on either side of the ellipsis ( … ).
• For example: “From medicine and space travel to disaster response … our products help teams all over the planet advance humanity through the power of software.” Atlassian: Discover our story.

• Avoid exclamation marks in UI copy and minimize their use in product marketing copy.
• They can be considered for exciting or new things, but ask yourself if it’s really that exciting or if one is needed. Don’t use more than one exclamation mark per page.

• Use a period (full stop) at the end of complete sentences, including in helper text, messages, and notifications.
• Don’t use periods in headers, titles, tooltips, field descriptions, and menu names, even if they are full sentences. While long content is discouraged, an exception is if these elements contain more than 1 sentence.
• Only use periods in a bulleted list if the item is a complete sentence. Don’t add a period at the end of a list of fragments.
• Add only one space after a period (full stop).

• single curly quotes, unless you're writing in code or there’s a semantic reason to use straight quotes.

• double quotes (”“) for speech and direct quotes. Don’t use italics.
• single quotes (‘’) to draw attention to a word you’re defining.

Mac

• Double quotes:
  • opening marks: option + [
  • closing marks: option + shift + [
• Single quotes:
  • opening marks: option + ]
  • closing marks: option + shift + ]

Windows

• Double quotes:
  • opening marks: Alt + 0147
  • closing marks: Alt + 0148
• Single quotes:
  • opening marks: Alt + 0145
  • closing marks: Alt + 0146