Formatting text in the UI

Text formatting is text displayed in a special, specified style. Avoid applying special formatting to text in the UI whenever possible because it introduces visual noise and complexity. Use the typography and styles defined in the design system for headings and paragraph text.

Use the following formatting guidelines:

• Avoid referring to UI elements in the UI. If you're writing in-product documentation, such as for a guided workflow, and you need to refer to UI elements, follow the documentation formatting guidelines in Formatting reference.
• Don't use formatting like bold, italics, or monospaced font in microcopy, such as in tooltips, help text, field labels, button labels, and error messages.
• Don't use all capital letters or bold for emphasis.
• Use indicating nouns to provide context for commands or other code elements rather than using monospaced font for the code element.

Examples

See the following examples:

Do this	Don't do this	Reasoning
Enter your email address.	Enter your email address.	The correct example uses plain text for "email address". The incorrect example applies UI element formatting to "email address".
Use the map_get() function to extract nested values from the attributes field.	Use map_get() to extract nested values from attributes.	The correct example uses plain text for the map_get() function and attributes field. The incorrect example uses monospaced font for the function and field.
The maximum number of search jobs has been reached. To reduce the number of search jobs, go to Job Inspector and delete unneeded jobs.	The maximum number of search jobs has been reached. To reduce the number of search jobs, go to Job Inspector and delete unneeded jobs.	The correct example uses plain text for Job Inspector. The incorrect example applies UI element formatting to "email address".