French Typo

by Jason Rouet

Description

French Typo automatically applies French typography rules to your content. Choose regular or thin non-breaking spaces in Settings > French Typo and save to add spaces before punctuation (;, :, !, ?, %, «, »); until you do, punctuation spacing stays off. It replaces (c) with ©, (r) with ®, and (tm) / (TM) with ™. It can normalize common French ordinal abbreviations (1ère 1re, 3ème 3e, etc.) when that option is enabled (on by default until you save settings without it).

Rules apply to posts, pages, excerpts, taxonomies, archives, comments, widgets, menus, RSS feeds, REST API, custom fields, breadcrumbs, and SEO metadata. Most areas can be enabled or disabled in settings. SEO titles, meta descriptions, and Open Graph/Twitter strings from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or SEOPress are not gated by the same toggles as post title and content; breadcrumbs use their own option.

Features

Non-breaking spaces before punctuation marks
Optional French ordinal abbreviations (1ère 1re, 3ème 3e, hyphenated “n-ième” nième, etc.), with the same raw HTML boundaries as other rules
Special character replacements ((c) ©, (r) ®)
Configurable: regular or thin non-breaking spaces
Comprehensive coverage: all WordPress content areas
Granular control: enable or disable each area individually
SEO integration: Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress
Custom fields support: ACF and Meta Box
Respects HTML and shortcodes

Author & Credits

Jason Rouet
* Website: jasonrouet.com
* Email: bonjour@jasonrouet.com
* WordPress.org: profiles.wordpress.org/jaz_on/

You can support this project on Ko-fi or GitHub Sponsors.

This plugin is a fork of French Typo created by Gilles Marchand (master_shiva), completely rebuilt since March 2024 with the help of Jean-Baptiste Audras. Inspired by TypoFR, Orthotypo, and Consistency.

Installation

Upload the plugin files to /wp-content/plugins/french-typo, or install through the WordPress plugins screen.
Activate the plugin.
Configure options in Settings > French Typo.

Screenshots

Plugin settings page

Faq

Does this plugin modify existing content?

No. Typography rules are applied on-the-fly when content is displayed, without modifying the original content in the database.

What’s the difference between regular and thin non-breaking spaces?

Regular spaces ( ) are standard and prevent line breaks. Thin spaces ( ) are narrower and may not display correctly depending on the font or browser.

Can I disable certain features?

Yes. You can disable non-breaking spaces or character replacements, and choose which content areas to process (SEO plugin title/meta/social strings are separate from those checkboxes; see description).

Does typography run inside code, scripts, or textareas?

No. Narrow spaces, (c)/(r)/(tm) replacements, and optional ordinal abbreviations are skipped inside script, style, pre/code (nested), and textarea, and in embedded CSS (e.g. SVG). The Verse block stays typographic unless it is also a Code block. See the plugin documentation on GitHub for details.

Does the plugin change English ordinals (1st, 2nd) or “1ème”?

No. English-style ordinals and non-standard 1ème are left as typed. Disable Ordinal abbreviations under Settings > French Typo if you prefer to keep forms like 3ème in French text.

Reviews

Just perfect

By chaplin89 on March 17, 2026

Je pensais devoir coder ça moi-même mais tu as fait ça parfaitement. Juste merci 😉

Simple, efficent and very useful ! Thanks

By Béryl de La Grandière (beryldlg) on November 20, 2025

Merci Jason, super initiative, ça manquait !
Je regarde ta todo et j'ai quelques remarques à ajouter

Concernant les abréviations de nombres ordinaux
premier donne bien 1^er mais première donne 1^re et non 1^ère

Deuxième et troisième donnent 2^e et 3^e dans tous les cas, pas de 2^ème ou 3^ème

Sinon les numéraux indéfinis s’abrègent en n^ième nième et x^ième, ce qui est calqué sur leur prononciation.

Changelog

Full history for all versions: CHANGELOG.md on GitHub.

1.2.1

Fixed: Settings page HTML for narrow-space and special-character help — tag names in angle brackets are escaped so the form and save button render correctly (browsers no longer interpret script / textarea / etc. as live tags).
Changed: Regenerated languages/french-typo.pot for those admin strings; dropped bundled fr_FR PO from the repo (translations on translate.wordpress.org).
Documentation: WordPress compatibility note for this release; see GitHub PR #7.
Compatibility: Tested up to WordPress 7.0

1.2.0

Added: Optional French ordinal abbreviations (1ère 1re, 3ème 3e, n-ième nième, etc.); see GitHub issue #3 (idea from Beryl on WordPress.org). Included in PR #6.
Added: Plugins admin screen — row meta links for French Typo (GitHub, WordPress.org support, Ko-fi, documentation on GitHub, 5-star review).
Added: Regenerated languages/french-typo.pot and French (fr_FR) translations for those meta link labels and settings strings.
Added: Stack-based raw regions — typography skipped inside <pre>, <code>, <script>, <style>, and <textarea> (nested-safe). Gutenberg Verse stays typographic unless wp-block-code is on the same <pre>.
Added: (tm) / (TM) ™ with the same special-characters option as (c) / (r).
Added: Documentation — streamlined root README.md; docs/test-post-content.md for manual QA; docs/configuration.md (legacy sanitized option), docs/faq.md (where typography runs), docs/architecture.md (textarea in raw markup); admin copy aligned for Posts and pages, RSS/REST toggles, and raw HTML regions.
Fixed: No narrow spaces or (c) / (r) / (tm) / (TM) replacements inside those raw regions (e.g. Elementor SVG <style>, code samples).
Fixed: Cache key includes typography options to avoid stale output after a settings change.
Fixed: Options sanitization no longer adds a stray sanitized flag or reuses a static cache across validate calls.
Improved: Settings labels and help text (Posts and pages section, raw markup, RSS/REST combined toggles).
Credits: Julio Potier (juliobox) and Beryl (beryldlg, profile) added to plugin contributors on WordPress.org; reflected in the Contributors header above.
Removed: Obsolete root TODO.md (task tracking moved to other locations).
Compatibility: Tested up to WordPress 7.0