This feature is available from the Pro plan and above.
The Style guide feature helps ensure consistency in your content and translations across your platform. You can upload a PDF or DOCX file with important guidelines, including text formality, tone of voice, and context.
Once uploaded, the style guide can be shared with translators when creating translation tasks. Additionally, if you're creating an AI translation task, the style guide will be utilized by the artificial intelligence to maintain consistency in tone and style.
Preparing style guide: recommended practices
If you are looking for some best practices on creating style guides, please check out blog post on the topic.
You can also take advantage of our free style guide template.
Developing a streamlined style guide for AI translation systems is essential for ensuring accuracy and consistency. Here are some optimized best practices for crafting an AI-focused guide:
Structure and accessibility
Organize the style guide clearly with well-defined sections, using headings, subheadings, and a table of contents for easy navigation.
Segment the guide into manageable pieces, focusing on different translation aspects such as tone, terminology, and grammatical preferences.
Conciseness is key
Keep the guide concise and focused. AIs process large amounts of information more effectively when it's succinct.
Start with a summary of the most critical guidelines, such as major dos and don'ts, preferred tone, and any standout rules.
Ensure that your rules do not contradict each other.
Ideally, create language-specific style guides rather than general ones. Customize guides for various content types (e.g., marketing content vs. technical content) and different projects.
Prioritize important information
Clearly mark the most crucial elements of the guide as "priority" to ensure the AI recognizes and emphasizes these areas in translations.
Avoid including irrelevant information.
Localization specifics
Lokalise AI is used to translate text only, so your guide should not mention image transcreation, fonts, audio-visual translation, and so on.
If you need to standardize certain terms, please use the Lokalise glossary, as the AI will also use entries from there. We do not recommend adding a glossary directly into the style guide.
Provide clear examples
Include examples that demonstrate the application of your guidelines. For AI, use inputs and expected outputs to show how each rule should be applied.
Incorporate visual aids
If applicable, use visual examples like formatted text to clarify more complex instructions, especially for layout or structured content translations.
Simplify language
Use straightforward and clear language to avoid ambiguities, ensuring the AI can easily interpret and follow the guidelines.
Detailed contextual guidelines
Provide context-specific rules that help in understanding how to handle various translation scenarios. This includes idiomatic expressions, industry-specific terminology, and cultural nuances that affect the translation.
Handling ambiguities
Include guidelines on how to handle ambiguous terms or phrases that might have multiple meanings. This is particularly important for languages with significant lexical ambiguity.
Error correction protocols
Outline steps for error detection and correction that the AI should follow, enhancing its ability to learn from mistakes and improve over time.
Dynamic updates
Keep the style guide dynamic and open to updates based on new data, changes in language use, or feedback from outputs.
What to include in the style guide?
To ensure clear, accurate, and culturally appropriate translations, a comprehensive style guide tailored for AI needs to include specific sections that address all aspects of language use. Here's what should be included:
Grammar and style
Provide detailed guidelines on sentence structure and correct use of grammar in the target language to ensure clear and accurate translations.
Example: We recommend using the active voice to create a sense of immediacy and clarity. For instance, "We’re processing your order" instead of "Your order is being processed."
Formatting
This section should specify the correct format for elements that vary between cultures, such as dates and numerical quantities, to ensure they are understood correctly by the target audience.
Example: Dates in U.S. English should be formatted as
MM/DD/YYYY, whereas in U.K. English, they should appear asDD/MM/YYYY.
Tone of voice
It’s crucial to specify the tone of voice, especially when translating marketing materials or content that needs to maintain brand consistency. Describe your tone with three to four adjectives and provide explanations to help ensure consistency.
Example: Our tone is friendly and conversational. All translated content should reflect a light-hearted and engaging tone, such as saying "Great news! You’re all set and subscribed!" instead of "You’ve successfully subscribed to the service."
Cultural references and sensitivity
Provide guidelines on how to handle cultural references, idioms, sayings, and other culturally specific elements to ensure they resonate appropriately with the target audience.
Example: The phrase "feel like a million dollars" should be adapted to local contexts where the concept of U.S. currency or the idiomatic expression might not be relevant. A more effective translation might be "feel fantastic" or a local equivalent that conveys a similar sentiment of wellbeing.
Common translation mistakes
Consider including a section that outlines frequent translation errors to avoid, such as literal translations of idioms or culturally inappropriate content.
Example: The expression "break a leg," which is used to wish someone good luck, should not be translated literally. It should be adapted to a phrase that conveys good luck in the target language.
Uploading a style guide
Only team admins, billers, or owners can manage style guides.
To upload a style guide to Lokalise, follow these steps:
Click on the Style guide button in the left menu.
You’ll be presented with an upload screen. Choose one or more PDF or DOCX files (up to 5 MB) from your computer to upload. There’s no need to structure the files in a specific way—they can simply contain plain text instructions and recommendations.
Once the files are uploaded, you’ll see a dialog where you can add more files or remove existing ones.
When ready, click Assign languages.
In the next step, choose a language for the style guide. The guide will be assigned to tasks based on the selected language. Alternatively, you can choose General guide from the dropdown to apply the style guide to all translation tasks, regardless of the target language.
Note: A single task can have multiple style guides assigned, depending on the selected languages.
Once everything is set, click Save.
Managing style guides
Once you've uploaded a style guide, you can manage it in various ways.
Assigning projects
To ensure your style guide is applied to translation tasks, assign it to specific projects:
Click Assign projects. If the style guide is unassigned, it won't be added to any tasks.
Choose one or more projects from the dropdown. The selected projects will appear in a list.
You can add or remove projects anytime by clicking on the project link.
For General guides, the style guide will be added to all tasks created within these projects, regardless of target language. If the guide is assigned to a specific language, it will only apply to tasks containing that target language.
Syncing with Lokalise AI
If you're using AI-powered tasks and want your style guide to be included, you’ll need to sync it with Lokalise AI:
Click Sync with Lokalise AI. Lokalise AI will process the document and summarize it into a more concise form. This may take a while.
Once processing is complete, a button will appear next to the style guide.
Click the button to view and modify the AI-generated summary. Save any changes. This summary will be used when an AI translation task is created.
Other actions
Renaming the style guide: Click the pen icon to rename it.
Additional actions: Click the three dots on the right of the style guide to view the file, modify the AI summary, or remove the uploaded guide.
Assigning style guide to a task
Multiple style guides can be linked to a single task. For example, if you’ve uploaded both a general guide and a guide for French, and French is selected as a target language, the task will include both guides.
Once the style guide is uploaded and assigned to the relevant projects, you can create a new task within one of these projects as explained in the task creation guide.
If the style guide is marked as a general guide, it will automatically be connected to the task, and you’ll see a notification confirming this.
If the style guide is linked to a specific language, it will only be connected if that language is selected as a target during the Scope and assignees step.
If you're creating an AI translation task and the style guide has been synced with Lokalise AI, it will be connected to the task, and the artificial intelligence will use it when generating translations.
After adjusting other task options, click Create task.
Using the style guide
If the task is of the AI translations type, the artificial intelligence will automatically use the connected style guide.
For tasks with human assignees, the assigned translators or reviewers will receive an email notification about the new task. This email will include a link to the style guide for reference.
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Additionally, the assignee can access the style guide from the Incoming tasks widget on Lokalise by clicking the Download style guide button.
