nonitalic

Nonitalic refers to the typographic style in which letters are upright and not slanted, also called roman or upright. It is the default or baseline form in most typefaces and serves as the standard against which italic or oblique styles are contrasted.

In typography, nonitalic is the opposite of italic. Italic is a distinct glyph set with slanted or specially designed characters used for emphasis, foreign words, or the titles of works in some style guides. Oblique is a related but separate style that simply slants the regular nonitalic characters without changing their shapes. Many typefaces include both regular (nonitalic) and italic variants, while others may provide a single upright face with no true italic companion.

Usage and guidance vary by context. In running text, nonitalic is typically used for the main content, with emphasis provided by italic, bold, or other cues defined by style guides. In academic and technical writing, upright type is also used for standard identifiers such as chemical symbols or certain mathematical constants in some conventions, while italic is used for variables and notation. Some disciplines require strict separation of italic and upright forms to avoid confusion.

Implementation on digital platforms is usually controlled by font-style. In CSS, the nonitalic state is font-style: normal (or font-style: inherit unless overridden). If a font family includes separate italic files, users can switch between nonitalic and italic through styling, while newer systems may provide automatic fallbacks to oblique or upright variants as needed.