Institutional translation has been extensively described (Koskinen 2008, 2009, 2011, 2014; Brownlie 2017; Svoboda 2017 to name but a few) and encompasses texts from supranational, multilingual or bilingual organisations and utilities. It is meant to meet quality criteria and therefore often entails a normative dimension. Quality relies indeed on meeting various norms whether linguistic, translational or textual norms but also depends on the development of the workflow, on the organisation of textual production and on keeping up to current standards. While every step of the institutional translation process is described in documents such as manuals and style guides, are translations up to readers’ expectations and what are the consequences on translators’ daily lives? In order to address the question, we shall first try to define institutional translation and quality and show in what respect these notions are closely related to norms before delving into normativity and its various forms in translation daily practice and its fallout on translators.