# Generate dynamic text

> Build text from your project's data at runtime, using templates that handle plurals, conditions, and lists.

Smart Strings are a Unity port of the SmartFormat library. They're an alternative to `String.Format` for text that has to change at runtime, such as a score readout, a notification, or a line of dialog. Because the logic lives in the template rather than in your C# code, a designer or translator can edit the text without touching a script.

A Smart String is made of literal text and placeholders. Sources evaluate a placeholder to produce a value, and formatters convert that value into text.

| **Topic**                                                                                                               | **Description**                                                                                                                                  |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **[Introduction to Smart Strings](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/smart-strings.md)**             | Understand how Smart Strings format dynamic text using named placeholders, sources, and formatters.                                              |
| **[Configure Smart Strings](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/configure-smart-strings.md)**         | Set up a project-wide default formatter and customize Smart Strings formatting in code.                                                          |
| **[Smart Strings settings reference](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/smart-strings-settings.md)** | Customize the settings that control the project's default Smart String formatter.                                                                |
| **[Handle formatting errors](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/handle-formatting-errors.md)**       | Control how Smart Strings react to invalid format strings, and track the failures that happen.                                                   |
| **[Smart Strings performance](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/smart-strings-performance.md)**     | Reduce allocations and re-parsing when you format the same Smart String repeatedly, and understand the thread-safety constraints of a formatter. |
| **[Populate strings with data using Sources](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/sources.md)**        | Browse the sources that evaluate a placeholder's selectors to produce the value to format.                                                       |
| **[Use formatters to apply logic to strings](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/generate-dynamic-text/formatters.md)**     | Browse the formatters that convert a selected value into text in a Smart String.                                                                 |

## Additional resources

* [Handle type data generically with Unity Properties](/engine/6000.7/manual/scripting/properties.md)
* [Localization](/engine/6000.7/manual/localization.md)
* [Work with text](/engine/6000.7/manual/uitoolkits/uielements/uie-work-with-text.md)