formatterare

Formatterare is a term used in Swedish to describe a person or software role responsible for formatting information according to a defined style, layout, or schema. The concept is widely used in computing, publishing, and data processing. Etymology: the word derives from format and the agent noun suffix -are, matching similar formations in Swedish.

In computing: Software formatters take structured input and produce text or markup that conforms to a style guide or technical standard. They may adjust whitespace, indentation, line length, numeric representation, and locale-specific rules. They often function as part of development toolchains, appearing as code formatters or pretty printers, and help maintain readability and consistency across codebases or data exports.

In publishing and data presentation: A formatter in publishing handles layout decisions such as page size, margins, fonts, paragraph spacing, and the arrangement of headlines and figures. In data processing, formatters adapt data to display formats (CSV, JSON, XML, or human-readable tables) for reports or dashboards.

Quality and governance: Effective formatter practices rely on style guides and automated tests to avoid drift, and may integrate with CI pipelines. This helps ensure uniform presentation across documents, software, dashboards, and other outputs.