Brand/Firefox/Toolkit/CopyRules

If you write words on behalf of Mozilla and you want to make your copy rule (!), here are the nitty-gritty details to guide you on your way.

In general, we use American English spelling, but use your judgement based on your audience. And when in doubt, or if you don’t see a particular entry here, follow AP style.

A–Z

a11y — our abbreviation for accessibility (11 letters between the A and Y), mostly for internal use

acronyms — uppercase with no periods, unless they are specifically part of a brand name or the result spells out a different word

add-ons — see “Firefox Add-ons”

beard — lowercase when referring to facial hair, uppercase when referring to VP Chris

capitalization — unless there is an entry stating otherwise, please capitalize the following: brands and products (Mozilla, Firefox, etc.); features (Personas, Panorama, etc.); acronyms (URL, etc.). URLs themselves (mozilla.org, firefox.com, etc.) are lowercase

channels — our term for the various builds of Firefox (Nightly, Aurora, Beta, Final Release); please avoid in user-facing communications

customers — we refer to “users” or “people;” do not use

double-click — hyphenated in all forms and uses

features — individual product features are capitalized, unless there is an entry stating otherwise

Fennec — internal code name for our mobile efforts as a whole, does not refer to any specific product and should not be used in outbound messaging

Firefox — capitalized unless appearing as part of a URL (firefox.com)

Firefox Add-ons — add-ons is capitalized when it follows Firefox, lowercase when on its own; the O is always lowercase

Firefox Aurora — Firefox Aurora on first mention, Aurora on subsequent mentions, always capitalized

Firefox Beta — Firefox Beta on first mention, Beta on subsequent mentions, always capitalized

Firefox Beta for mobile — “Beta for mobile” is also acceptable, but never “mobile Beta;” mobile is always lowercase

Firefox for Android — unlike mobile, Android is always capitalized

Firefox for desktop — desktop is always lowercase

Firefox for Maemo — unlike mobile, Maemo is always capitalized

Firefox for mobile — mobile is always lowercase; never “mobile Firefox”

Firefox Nightly — Firefox Nightly on first mention, Nightly on subsequent mentions, always capitalized

free — this one is tricky as it means both “without cost” and “without restrictions” in English, though there are separate words for these concepts in many other languages; please be very clear when using or avoid

Godzilla — what we are of search engines

http:// — this should never appear before a URL in communications unless there is a very good reason (though we can’t think of one off the tops of our heads)

Internet — always capitalized

Join Mozilla — refers specifically to the fundraising campaign and should not be used in other contexts; both words are capitalized

l10n — our abbreviation for localization (10 letters between the L and N), mostly for internal use

left-click — hyphenated in all forms and uses

mobile — lowercase, even if it follows Firefox; see also “Firefox for mobile”

mobile device — in general, use instead of “phone”

Moz — we do not generally abbreviate the Mozilla name, unless otherwise noted in this guide; please avoid

Mozilla — even though the Mozilla wordmark is lowercase, Mozilla should be capitalized in all other uses, unless as part of a URL (mozilla.org)

Mozillians — refers to contributors or anyone who identifies him or herself as part of the Mozilla community; always uppercase unless part of a URL (mozillians.org)

MozSpace/MozSpaces — these terms are used to refer to a specific group of Mozilla offices around the world, which include open space for the community; current locations or those in the works include San Francisco, Toronto, London and Berlin

non-profit — though “nonprofit” is not incorrect, we prefer to use the hyphenated form

numbers — spell out as words from one to nine, use numerals 10 and up; spell out large numbers like thousand, million, etc.

open/open Web — as the Web is open by its very nature, there is no need to make the distinction; not a forbidden term, but avoid where possible

people — though we mostly refer to “users,” this is also acceptable and either should be used instead of “customers”

possessives — though you may run into cases where it’s impossible, please avoid using possessives with our brands or product names where you can; see also “plurals”

plurals — as with possessives, it is preferable not to pluralize our brands or product names; try to reword if you can

punctuation — see punctuation section below

right-click — hyphenated in all forms and uses

URL — all uppercase, no periods, but URLs themselves (mozilla.org, firefox.com, etc.) are lowercase

users — use this or “people” instead of “customers”

Web — always capitalized when on its own or part of a compound construction that doesn’t create a new word (Web page, Web feed, etc.); see individual entries for other uses

webcam — one word, lowercase

webcast — one word, lowercase

webmaster — one word, lowercase

website — all together now: one word, lowercase

www — avoid using (like the plague!) before URLs; it is not 1999 anymore

Punctuation

commas — we do not use serial commas (also called Oxford commas) at Mozilla

dashes — hyphens (-) are used to create a single idea out of two or more words and are always connected; en dashes (–) are used for ranges, like numbers and dates, and are also connected; em dashes (—) are used to set related, yet separate thoughts off from each other, either within a sentence or following it, and in either case they are not connected

exclamation points — it’s acceptable to use exclamation points, but don’t overdo it; they are not a replacement for creating genuine excitement in writing

quotation marks — punctuation generally goes inside quotation marks, including exclamation and question marks, unless the exclamation or question is part of the entire sentence, not just the portion contained in the quotation marks

slashes — if it’s in a URL, it’s a forward slash, people, not a backslash