Hi Claudio, Thanks for testing ;-)

% !TEX TS-program = pdfLaTeX % !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode

Sorry I'm not using any shell editor, nor using "magic lines"; I don't know how to set it up for platex or uplatex. Just I type the commands directly on the terminal, * For platex: "ptex2pdf -l test.tex" (-> just the same as "platex test.tex" then "dvipdfmx test.dvi") * For uplatex: "ptex2pdf -l -u test.tex" (-> just the same as "uplatex test.tex" then "dvipdfmx test.dvi")

I do not know any package that defines the equivalent of \ifUPTeX, therefore I cannot really test with uplatex.

The iftex package provides \ifpTeX for ptex, \ifupTeX for upTeX. * On pTeX, \ifpTeX is true; \ifupTeX is false. \ifPDFTeX, \ifXeTeX, \ifLuaTeX are false. * On upTeX, both \ifpTeX and \ifupTeX are true. \ifPDFTeX, \ifXeTeX, \ifLuaTeX are false. I adjusted your test file to work with all of the following engines: pdflatex, xelatex, lualatex, platex, uplatex. Please find the attached "babel-italian-claudio.tex". For convenience, I also attach my working copy of italian.ldf and its source italian.dtx. Best, Hironobu