Procore’s Grammar Rules

These Procore-specific grammar rules outline our preferred styles for capitalization, punctuation, dates, times, and more. For rules not covered here, we default to rules listed in Microsoft’s Style Guide.

Acronyms

Acronyms are used in headers and buttons to save space. The first time an acronym is used in body text and subtext, spell out the title or phrase and present the acronym immediately after in parenthesis (e.g. commitment change order (CCOs).

Don’t spell out the acronym if it’s listed in the American Heritage Dictionary (e.g., HTML, FAQ, etc), and don’t capitalize the spelled-out word or phrase unless it’s a proper noun.

Ampersands

Ampersands (&) are used in buttons that list two or more actions (e.g., Create & Distribute). We only use ampersands in headers and subheaders if space is extremely limited. Otherwise, use and whenever possible.

Capitalization

Our capitalization guidelines follow standard sentence case and title case rules, and there are some words in Procore that you capitalize and some that you don’t.

Title Case

Title case formatting is used for headers found on pages, banners, empty states, and more. Title case has no ending punctuation, and calls for the capitalization of the first and last word and all words except the following:

- Small words, like articles

- Prepositions of four or fewer letters

- Conjunctions

Note: Small words are capitalized when they are verbs, adverbs, and pronouns.

Sentence Case

Sentence case formatting is used within the body copy of tooltips, subcopy, banners, empty states, and more. We also use sentence case in subheadings. Sentence case uses ending punctuation and calls for the capitalization of the first letter of the first word, as well as any proper nouns within a sentence format.

Note: When referring to button labels or interactable elements in instructions, capitalize and bold that word.

Capitalization of Hyphenated Words

When words are joined by a slash, capitalize the word after the hyphen if the word before the hyphen is capitalized.

Capitalization of Hyphenated Words

Navigation
Capitalize page and tab names, but not parts of a page.
Levels of Procore
Capitalize Project and Company, but not the word level. You may also call a level “project’s” or “company’s” in sentence case. Do not hyphenate levels of Procore.
Products
Capitalize the whole product title.
Tools
Capitalize the title of the tool, but not the word tool. Do not capitalize items within tools.
User Roles and Titles
Capitalize user roles and titles only when referring to a specific user. User roles and titles are lowercase when referring to a general role or user persona.
Permission Levels
Capitalize permission levels. Do not hyphenate levels. Do not capitalize the word, “permissions.”
Features, Components, and Items
Features are specific functions within a tool. Components are elements on the page. Items are objects that are created in a tool. Do not capitalize features, components, 
or items within the product.

Dates & Times

The approved styles for dates and times below can be chosen based on the amount of space available within the design and the information required. If you choose one of these formats, and your component or tool is internationalized using the Procore Globalization Tool Kit (GTK), the formats you pick will be localized appropriately for the user’s locale (or some other locale that you need to display).

Dates and times formats can be used together, or separately. If you use them together, the GTK should provide the appropriate connector depending on the format chosen (e.g. “<date> at <time>” or “<date>, <time>” in US English). Otherwise separate date and time using comma + space.
Preset Format
Examples (US English)
Short
1/31/2023 at 2:30 PM
Medium
Jan 31, 2023 at 2:30:09 PM
Long
January 31, 2023 at 2:30:09 PM EST
Full
Wednesday, January 31, 2023 at 2:30:09 PM Eastern Standard Time

Weekday and Month Abbreviations

Only abbreviate when space is limited. The second and third letters are lowercase, and there are no periods.
Weekday
* Two letter weekday abbreviations are only used in our date picker component.
Month

Time

Use AM & PM preceded by a space, and include the minutes when the time displayed is on the hour.
Time Zones
Always distinguish between standard and daylight time. Capitalize all words.
Time Range
In text, use “to” in a range of times. E.g., 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
In a schedule or listing, use an en dash with no spaces around it. E.g., 10:00 AM–2:00 PM.

Measurements and Numbers

We use the following format for measurements. Keep translation in mind for specific use cases for both translation length and using the most appropriate system for your users.

When superscript formatting isn’t an option, add a caret before the number. 

Example:  yd^3
Cubic foot
ft^3, ft³
Cubic yard
yd^3, yd³
Cubic foot
ft^3, ft³
Each
ea
Inch
in
Linear foot
lf
Lump sum
ls
Price per [measurement]
$/[measurement abbreviation] Example: $/ft^2
Square foot
ft^2, ft²
Square meter
m^2, m²
Ton
ton
Tonne
t
Yard
yd

Writing Numbers

We spell out whole numbers from zero through nine, and use numerals for 10 or greater. If you have limited space, use numerals for all numbers.

Writing Monetary Amounts

For amounts of money less than $1 million, use the dollar sign and numerals. For large numbers of $1 million and greater, spell out million, billion, and trillion. In specific cases where users need to know the exact figure of an amount greater than $1 million, numerals may be used to write out the number.

Example: The initial project budget was $990,000, but was increased to $1.2 million.

Punctuation

Below are some of the most common forms of punctuation we use in Procore’s product. Other forms of punctuation (e.g., dashes, ellipses, and semicolons) aren’t listed because we should rarely use them.

Colons

Colons are only used at the end of a complete sentence to introduce a list of three or more items. The most common use case for colons within Procore’s product is used after a complete sentence and before a bulleted list.
Common Mistakes
Don’t put a colon after a header or field name.
Don’t put a colon after an incomplete sentence.

Commas

We use the Oxford comma, which means putting a comma before the conjunction in a list of three or more.

Contractions

Use contractions within Procore’s product, but consider that contractions don’t appear in all languages, so using contractions will lengthen translated copy in a component. Consider the word count in reference to translations when using contractions.

Note: If you do decide to spell out can’t, then use cannot with no space between words.

Ellipses

We only use ellipses in our product when text is truncated. We do not use ellipses in placeholder text.

Exclamation

We don’t use exclamation points within Procore’s product except for specific, pre-approved cases.

Quotation Marks

We don’t use single or double quotation marks within Procore’s product. Double quotation marks are only used when restating the exact spoken or written language.

Common Mistakes
Do not use quotation marks when referencing page names, buttons, or fields.