Punctuation

In the first mention, spell it out and include the acronym in parentheses—unless it’s commonly known like IRS, ZIP code, EIN, PIN. For plurals, use a lowercase “s” without an apostrophe. Use standard abbreviations; don’t just truncate words. In general, avoid abbreviations unless they’re in address details (Apt., Ste., or Bldg.). Do include the period of an abbreviation when using a colon. Don’t use Latin abbreviations (e.g., i.e.). For abbreviations in column headers, use a period at the end of the abbreviation.

Note that special rules apply to the abbreviation for United States. In headlines, it’s US (this applies to slide titles, too). In text body, it’s U.S.

Use apostrophes to form contractions, possessives, and—in rare cases—plurals. If it sounds awkward, you can always try rewriting it to avoid the apostrophe. For joint possession, you only need a single apostrophe. (Including apostrophes for each possessor means they each have their own individual thing.)

An asterisk flags a corresponding comment on the bottom of the page. As a general rule, asterisks slow web readers down. You’re interrupting their train of thought and asking them to hunt for secondary information. When possible, avoid them.

If you need to cite legalese, use an asterisk as a footnote symbol if it’s the only one on the page. For more than one, use footnote numbers (this should be in PDFs only, not web or UI). The asterisk goes before a dash, but after every other punctuation mark.

Do not put the asterisk in the middle of a sentence. Put it at the end. And never use multiple asterisks in one sentence.

We rarely use angle brackets < >. Use a right angle bracket > for steps that point to specific navigation elements.

Use square brackets [ ] to insert text inside quotes. They can be used for clarifying unstable pronouns, translation, indicating a change in capitalization, censoring objectionable content, or a parenthetical within a parenthetical.

Dashes and hyphens aren’t the same thing. A hyphen makes compound words. An en dash (the shorter dash) expresses a range of values (times, years, dollar amounts). And an em dash creates an interruption in a sentence like a semicolon, but with flair (we’re partial).

Don’t include a space on either side of a hyphen or dash. Use a hyphen if you’re using the number with the unit of measure as an adjective. Don’t use a hyphen when writing terms like “Sign in” unless they’re an adjective describing a noun that follows. Never use a hyphen for verbs like “set up” when the noun version (setup) is a single word.

Compound adjectives can negatively impact readability, so we should use them sparingly and stick to ones that are commonly used or familiar.

Hyphen:

Run in-depth sales reports.

Get one-on-one help from a tax expert.

Help clients understand payroll details with pre-configured reports.

I’m reading nineteenth-century novels in the early twentieth century.

You can review your taxes on a 12-week schedule.

En dash:

$500–$800

7:00–9:00 pm

2004–2016

Em dash:

Sit back and learn—see our video.

To estimate quarterly tax payments, you need a projection—an educated guess—of yearly profit.

—Mike Brown

(Keyboard equivalent: option+shift+hyphen, or in MS Word, two hyphens no spaces will auto-adjust.)

Like asterisks, footnotes slow web readers down. You’re interrupting their train of thought and asking them to hunt for secondary information. When possible, avoid them. To use them, insert a number formatted in superscript at the end of the sentence. Corresponding footnotes live at the bottom of the page.

If you need to cite legalese, use footnotes when you’re citing more than one thing on the page. Don’t put the footnote mid-sentence. Put it at the end instead. And don’t use multiple footnotes in one sentence.

Use parentheses in pairs to provide examples, add an aside, or introduce an abbreviation. Parenthetical text can be a word, a fragment, or multiple sentences. Your sentence should make sense when you read it out loud without the parenthetical text. If a sentence ends with a parenthetical that’s only part of a larger sentence, the period goes outside the closing parenthesis. If the parenthetical itself is a whole sentence, the period goes inside the parenthesis.

Use a pipe | (vertical bar) in title tags to separate elements of the title. Search engines will highlight keywords that you include in those tags in the results if someone uses those keywords to search. Social media and other external sites often use the title tag of a page as its link anchor text.

Use a question mark at the end of a direct question. Don’t use more than one together (???) or pair it with an exclamation point (?!).

Use quotation marks for spoken words or short quoted phrases. Put commas and periods inside closing quotation marks. Other punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, question marks, exclamation points) go outside closing quotation marks, unless it’s part of the quote.

Use slashes when necessary to mean “per,” “and,” or “or.” Slashes can also form certain abbreviations or indicate two-year spans.

TM is the symbol for “trademark” and is used on product or feature names and logos and serves as a legal “notice” to others that we claim the name as our own, even if/when it is not formally registered with the government.

SM is the symbol for “service mark,” which is essentially the same as a trademark except that it’s the symbol used on service names. It also serves to notify others that we claim a particular name or design as exclusively ours, even if it’s not formally registered with the government.

A word or name can often serve two or three functions:

• Intuit, Inc.: (Intuit as a trade name)
• Intuit Financial Supplies: (Intuit as a trademark)
• Intuit Online Payroll: (Intuit as a service mark)

Symbol Placement Cheat Sheet for Intuit’s Trademarks

Here are some of our most frequently used offering names and their appropriate trademark symbols. For a complete list of all of Intuit’s trademarks and service marks, check out the Master List of Intuit Trademarks.