Is there a standard for furigana? ふりがな vs フリガナ


When writing furigana I was told if it's written「フリガナ」write it in katakana. If
it's「ふりがな」then write it in hiragana.

I'm curious if there's a standard or everyone that makes a document just kind
of chooses if they want it in hiragana or katakana?




Yes, when the form says `ふりがな` you usually have to fill it with hiragana, and
when the form says `フリガナ` you usually have to fill it with katakana. Both
styles are common. In online forms there may be an explicit instruction or an
example.

If you are a form designer, you can basically choose whichever you like, but
there are several considerations:

  * Modern Japanese speakers generally have gotten used to furigana written in hiragana in novels and such. If you asked a not-so-old Japanese speaker to write down how to read their name, you would usually get a name written in hiragana. But [foreign names written in hiragana can look really bad](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/19441/5010).
  * Historically, there were times when hiragana was not available on computers, and [old paper forms tended to use katakana](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/17393/5010).
  * Mixture of hiragana and katakana can cause troubles when you need to sort names alphabetically, although recent programs are usually clever enough to handle this situation correctly.

I feel forms/programs developed recently mainly use furigana in hiragana.




Yes, when the form says `ふりがな` you usually have to fill it with hiragana, and
when the form says `フリガナ` you usually have to fill it with katakana. Both
styles are common. In online forms there may be an explicit instruction or an
example.

If you are a form designer, you can basically choose whichever you like, but
there are several considerations:

  * Modern Japanese speakers generally have gotten used to furigana written in hiragana in novels and such. If you asked a not-so-old Japanese speaker to write down how to read their name, you would usually get a name written in hiragana. But [foreign names written in hiragana can look really bad](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/19441/5010).
  * Historically, there were times when hiragana was not available on computers, and [old paper forms tended to use katakana](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/17393/5010).
  * Mixture of hiragana and katakana can cause troubles when you need to sort names alphabetically, although recent programs are usually clever enough to handle this situation correctly.

I feel forms/programs developed recently mainly use furigana in hiragana.

