What orthotypography reveals
Orthotypography refers to the rules governing the use of punctuation, spacing, capitalisation and typographic marks in composed text. These rules vary between languages — and they vary far more than most people assume.
In multilingual document design — annual reports, corporate publications, institutional brochures — ignoring these rules produces a result that reads as careless to a native reader. Even when the translation is flawless. Even when the layout is otherwise impeccable.
Attention to orthotypography is one of the quiet markers that distinguishes a professionally produced document from one that merely appears translated.
A poorly typeset document always feels slightly foreign to its own language.
Quotation marks: three languages, three systems
This is the most visible example. Each language has its own quotation marks, and they are not interchangeable.
- French — angled guillemets with non-breaking spaces inside: « comme ceci »
- English — curly double quotes: "like this" (and single quotes for nesting: 'like this')
- German — low-high quotes: „so wie hier" (opening mark at the bottom, closing at the top)
Using straight quotes (" ") in any of these languages is a typographic error. Straight quotes are inch marks — a typewriter legacy — and have no place in composed text.
Spacing and punctuation: the French rule
French is the only language among the three that requires spaces before certain punctuation marks. The rule:
- Non-breaking space before: colon (:), semicolon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?), closing guillemet (»)
- Non-breaking space after: opening guillemet («)
- No space before punctuation in English or German
In practice, this rule directly affects composition: a punctuation mark must never appear alone at the start of a line. The non-breaking space ensures the mark stays attached to the preceding word. In layout software, this is a manual operation that the designer must plan for — and it noticeably affects line lengths.
Punctuation marks attached directly to the preceding word — the English rule applied to French text.
Non-breaking space before : ; ! ? and inside guillemets. The mark cannot appear alone at the start of a line.
Capitalisation: FR capitalises little, EN capitalises a lot, DE capitalises everything
Capitalisation rules diverge sharply across the three languages.
- French — capitals only for sentence starts and proper nouns. Job titles, months, days, languages and nationalities are lowercase: directrice générale, janvier, lundi, le français.
- English — capitals for job titles in context, months, days, languages and nationalities: Chief Executive Officer, January, Monday, French.
- German — every common noun takes a capital, without exception: der Bericht (the report), die Nachhaltigkeit (sustainability), das Unternehmen (the company).
For the designer, this means that the same title translated into all three languages will have different visual weight — German produces significantly more capitals, which optically densifies the text and can require adjustments to leading or letter-spacing.
Dashes: em dash, en dash, hyphen
There are three distinct marks that are frequently confused:
- Hyphen (-) — used for compound words and end-of-line breaks. Universal.
- En dash (–) — used in English and German for parenthetical clauses and ranges (2020–2024).
- Em dash (—) — used in French for parenthetical clauses and dialogue, preceded by a non-breaking space.
In American English, the em dash is used with no spaces on either side — which distinguishes it further from French usage. In German, the en dash is surrounded by spaces. These differences are subtle but immediately perceptible to a native reader.
Numbers and units
Number notation is one of the most critical divergences in data-heavy documents — financial reports, ESG tables, corporate publications.
- French — thousands separator: non-breaking space (1 000 000) — decimal separator: comma (3,14)
- English — thousands separator: comma (1,000,000) — decimal separator: full stop (3.14)
- German — thousands separator: full stop (1.000.000) — decimal separator: comma (3,14)
Currency symbol placement also differs: 10 € in French (symbol after, with non-breaking space), €10 or £10 in English (symbol before, no space). An error here in a financial table signals a lack of rigour immediately.
What this means for layout
These rules are not just questions of correctness — they have direct consequences for composition.
- Non-breaking spaces in French lengthen lines and shift hyphenation points
- The density of capitals in German optically weights headings and captions
- Guillemets « » take up more horizontal space than " " — French text set at equal point size will be slightly wider
- Em and en dashes have different widths that affect the visual rhythm of a line
In a well-designed multilingual publication, these adjustments are built into the grid from the outset — not corrected at the end of production. That is the difference between a document that feels naturally at home in each language and one that merely appears translated.