Numbers

Abbreviating the word "number"

The preferred abbreviation for number is no. with a period.

Don’t use # in place of the word number unless there are significant space restrictions, such as in a mobile screen.

Check with regional content designers for acceptable abbreviations in specific countries. For example, n° is the accepted abbreviation in France.

Bold numbers

You can use bold to highlight user interface elements such as numbers in instructional text. Don’t use it just for emphasis.

Use only one treatment at a time (color, bold, italics, indentation). If the ghost text in a form field is already italicized or a distinct color, don’t make it bold too.

Currency

For negative amounts, place the minus symbol in front of the currency symbol.

You can specify which country by adding the currency code after the amount if needed.

Australia

Brazil

Leave a space between the currency symbol and the amount, and use a comma to separate Brazilian reais and cents.

Canada and US

Don’t add a space between the currency symbol and the amount ($10.20, not $ 10.20).

If you’re displaying currency in dollars and the amount is less than one dollar, use the cents symbol. Example: 25¢. It helps with accessibility and clarity. But if you’re presenting this in product (as in entry fields), it should be 0.25 with no cents symbol.

France

Don’t add a space between the currency symbol and the amount (€10, not € 10).

UK

Don’t add a space between the currency symbol and the amount (£10, not £ 10).

Dates

Australia

Use dd/mm/yyyy (without a leading zero) or dd Month, yyyy.

Brazil

Use dd/mm/yyyy (without a leading zero) or dd month, yyyy. Months are always lowercase.

Canada

Use dd/mm/yyyy (without a leading zero) or Month dd, yyyy.

France

Use dd/mm/yyyy (without a leading zero) or dd Month, yyyy.

UK

Use dd/mm/yyyy, dd/mm, or dd Month, yyyy.

US

Use mm/dd/yyyy (without a leading zero) or Month dd, yyyy.

Decimals

Carry decimals to the hundredth place (33.76). Omit zeroes when possible unless the number is a dollar amount.

Use decimals (0.75) instead of fractions.

Footnotes

Try not to use footnotes.

Asterisks and the footnotes that go with them slow readers down. You’re interrupting their train of thought and asking them to hunt for secondary information.

If you need to use footnotes, insert a number formatted in superscript at the end of the sentence. Corresponding footnotes live at the bottom of the page or screen.

If you need to cite legal copy, use footnotes when you’re citing more than one thing on the page. Don’t put the footnote in the middle of the sentence. Put it at the end instead. And don’t use multiple footnotes in one sentence. Work with your legal partner.

ID numbers and sensitive data

To protect our users’ privacy, we mask some of their personal information. A character is masked after a 2-second delay or immediately after another character is entered. Use black dots (●)—also called midline ellipses—to mask data (Option+8 on a Mac). Use one dot to mask each character in sensitive data patterns, such as Social Security numbers, birthdates, email addresses, and phone and account numbers.

Mask letter strings with 4 black dots, truncating no more than 4.
Mask all account numbers except the last four with four black dots. 

Check with your product information security team if you’re not sure what to mask.

Numbers with commas

Use commas in numbers with 4 or more digits (example: $5,000).

But don’t use commas in error numbers, page numbers, or addresses.

Phone numbers

Phone numbers are formatted differently depending on the country. For all locales, include the area code, leave off the country code, and don’t bold anything. Follow the formats in these examples.

Australia

Use spaces in phone numbers. Leave off the +61 before the STD code and use “ext.” for extension if needed.

Brazil

Use dashes in most phone numbers and use a space to separate the area code. For 0800 numbers, use spaces. Use ramal for extension if needed.

Canada

Use dashes in phone numbers. Leave out the 1 before the area code except for toll free numbers, and use “ext.” for extension if needed.

France

Use spaces between sets of 2 numbers and leave out the +33 before the number. For toll-free numbers, don’t use a space between the 4 digits.

India

Landline phone numbers are 8 digits long and are split into groups of 4 digits.

Cities in India have 2- or 3-digit codes which are written before the phone number. Use a space between each group.

For mobile phones numbers, add the country code (+91), a space, and then the 10-digit number. 

UK

Use spaces in phone numbers. Leave out the +44 before the area code.

US

Use dashes in phone numbers. Leave out the 1 before the area code and use “ext.” for extension if needed.

Time

When you need to specify the length of a video, use the 0:00 format.

When you’re talking about time zones within your target audience’s country, use these regional guidelines. If you’re talking about time zones outside that region (international, from the reader’s point of view), use 24-hour time with UTC offsets.

It's OK to shorten intervals of time (such as years, months, and quarters) to save space or avoid truncation issues. Use your best judgment—for example, you don't need to shorten them within a sentence, but you probably want to in a table. See more on abbreviations

Australia, Canada, and US time

Express time as H:MM AM/PM time zone. Include a space before AM or PM, but no periods.

It's OK to drop minutes if it's on the hour. Noon and midnight can be referred to as just that, or as 12 AM and 12 PM.

Abbreviate time zones within Australia, US, and Canada like this:

Use abbreviations (PT, ET) when combined with a time reference (for example, 5 AM PT).

Spell out Eastern Time, Pacific Time, and so forth when standing alone without a time reference.

Note: To reduce maintenance and upkeep, we no longer refer to Standard/Daylight Time.

Brazil time

Use 24-hour time without time zones. Don't put a space between the number and the h. Noon (Meio-dia) and midnight (Meia-noite) can be referred to as just that, or as 12h and 24h.

France time

Use 24-hour time without time zones. Leave a space between the number and the h.

United Kingdom time

Use 12-hour times with periods instead of colons.

Units of measure

Leave a space between the number and the unit of measure and use open punctuation (no periods). Use a hyphen if you’re using the number with the unit of measure as an adjective.

For Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, and UK, use the metric system.

For the U.S., use the imperial system and provide metric equivalents in parentheses after the imperial measurement where it’s useful.