Formatting Examples

This wiki page is a modest attempt to organize the knowledge in the DP forum so that it is easier to find the many threads in the DP forum that give good advice and examples on proper formatting. (There is a companion page of proofing examples.)

The intention is not to reprise the Guidelines. Nor is this a substitute for the forums. It is, however, a supplement to them. The forums are still the primary venue to pose questions and seek answers for how to properly proofread and format something. However, often, in the midst of formatting, a foofer may say, "Now, I remember a thread with an example much like the problem I am facing, if only I can find that thread again...." And very often, the thread with the example desired is in some hard-to-find corner, like in a team-talk thread, or a specific project thread. That's when a foofer can turn to this page.

In the remarks column of these tables, excerpts from the Guidelines (regarded as authoritative) are shown in a bold contrasting color thus. Other text comprises excerpts from forum discussions (or comments by the editors of these wiki pages) and are exactly that: discussions. These tables can only quote excerpts, and it is often a good idea to follow the links for fuller context. Also note that sometimes people may not fully agree with a forum post but not air their disagreements to avoid starting a dispute when the advice given the the poster who asked a question would not differ much. This is particularly true in the Q&A fora, from which a number of examples are drawn here. the correctness and universality of the examples used here can be debated on the talk page.

In addition, by gathering many examples into a single place, experienced DPers can review them from time to time, and when the Guidelines or the practice under them changes, this page might be well be changed to match. Thus it may eventually be a more up-to-date collection of examples than a search of the fora would reveal.

If you happen to stumble upon this page, please recognize that it is very much work in progress, and that it will be a long time before it is anything like complete, much less definitive. In the meantime, feel free to use this page, or better still, edit it.

This page uses a set of templates to create display tables in a consistent way. for discussion of these, and to comment on the format and content of this page, please see the talk page.

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Front/Back Title Page

Title Page Examples

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.		This image from a DP project that has passed F2 has been reduced and adapted to save space. The formatting in the example is taken from the project pages, as inputted by an F2. In accordance with the Guidelines, note the following: different parts or elements of the title page are treated as separate paragraphs with blank lines in between character markups such as italics and smallcaps are used pictures such as the flower on the page are not treated as illustrations but are simply ignored. Although not explicitly stated in the Guidelines, I have also noticed many (but not all) F2s including the one who did this page do the following: treat the beginning of the title page as a new chapter and insert 4 blank lines on top enclose the entire text of the title page within no-wrap text markers /* */ unlike poetry, text is all left-aligned, with no spaces to preserve the relative indent of the lines from the left margin (just like the example in the Guidelines) Horizontal lines, lines of stars and other decorative dividers in the title page are not treated as thought-breaks. See forumtopic:18836.
	(four blank lines) /* YOUNG CAPTAIN JACK OR <i>THE SON OF A SOLDIER</i> BY HORATIO ALGER, <sc>Jr.</sc> AUTHOR OF "OUT FOR BUSINESS," "FALLING IN WITH FORTUNE," "ADRIFT IN NEW YORK," "TATTERED TOM," "RAGGED DICK," ETC. COMPLETED BY ARTHUR M. WINFIELD AUTHOR OF "THE ROVER BOYS SERIES," ETC. NEW YORK THE MERSHON COMPANY PUBLISHERS */

Illustrations

Examples of Illustration Formatting

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.	(if a page only has an illustration on it and no text....)	See forumtopic:22617. This appears to be the best practice adopted and recommended by several experienced formatters such as (in this thread) Scribe and JHowse. It is not explicitly stated in the Guidelines but may feature in a future revision. However, note also that TheEileen says in the same thread that various PPers had told her that the blank line does not need to be there and that it doesn't matter.
	mark it by a single blank line on top of the page and then insert the regular illustration tag: [Illustration: caption text if any]

Footnotes/Endnotes

Examples of Footnote Formatting

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.	1. This footnote has text and ends with poetry: Poetry poetry poetry Poetry poetry poetry Poetry poetry poetry 2. Oh hear the formatter groan, This footnote has poetry alone! What to do? He asks around. Why simple, dear friend, return to round!	See forumpost:251921 and discussion before and after in forumtopic:22616. See also forumpost:240158 and discussion before and after. The blank line before the "/*" marker is definitely needed, and the closing "*/" cannot be on the same line as the closing "]". On whether a blank line is needed between the closing "*/" and the closing "]", there were several opinions that this was not necessary. However having the blank line also appeared to be a best practice preferred by many of the PPers in forumtopic:226160. It was felt to be consistent with the guideline: Leave a blank line between these markers and the rest of the text. where the closing "]" as well as opening "[Footnote x:" are regarded as part of "the rest of the text".
	[Footnote 1: This footnote ends with some poetry: /* Poetry poetry poetry Poetry poetry poetry Poetry poetry poetry */ ] [Footnote 2: /* Oh hear the formatter groan, This footnote has poetry alone! What to do? He asks around. Why simple, dear friend, return to round! */ ]
2.	A case where a multi-paragraph footnote continues across a page break. At the bottom of 423.png: And at the bottom of 424.png:	This example is taken from "Travels in China". See discussion in forumtopic:24115. The footnote text on 424.png makes clear that it is a continuation of the footnote on 423.png. However the first line of the continuation ("Who could escape....") is indented, showing that it is the start of a new paragraph of a multi-paragraph footnote. As per standard guidelines, the footnote continuation is indicated by *[Footnote: ....]. As for the paragraph break: Option 1 is recommended by megani and uses a [**note] to alert the post-processor to the existence of a paragraph break at the beginning of the footnote continuation. Option 2 and some variants also mentioned in the thread use blank line to indicate the paragraph break. This is the treatment recommended by garweyne and mroe. Note words have been omitted in the correctly formatted examples to save column width. In reality, all the words in the image would be used.
	(Option 1) [Footnote A: .... of the Emperor, this sentence was mitigated ... being allowed to be his own executioner. A silken cord being sent ... mark of the Emperor's favour, he caused himself to be strangled by some of his attendants.]* (on the next page) *[Footnote: [**new paragraph]Who could escape ... the accuser? It will readily occur....] (Option 2) [Footnote A: .... of the Emperor, this sentence was mitigated ... being allowed to be his own executioner. A silken cord being sent ... mark of the Emperor's favour, he caused himself to be strangled by some of his attendants.]* (on the next page) *[Footnote: Who could escape when the Emperor ... the accuser? It will readily occur....]

Italics

BASIC EXAMPLES

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.	As in many other of these Studies, and	Guidelines: ....Punctuation goes outside the italics, unless it is an entire sentence or section that is italicized, or the punctuation is itself part of a phrase, title or abbreviation that is italicized....
	As in many other of these <i>Studies</i>, and
2.	continually deafened with so many Divisions?	....even when the original image shows a punctuation which is italicized. See forumtopic:24101
	continually deafened with so many <i>Divisions</i>?
3.	God knows what she saw in me! I spoke in such an affected manner.	This example from the Guidelines shows a complete sentence ending with me! The exclamation mark goes inside the italics tags in this case.
	<i>God knows what she saw in me!</i> I spoke in such an affected manner.

SENTENCES AND PHRASES WITHIN QUOTATION MARKS

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
4.	"Turn on that water!!--" "Jones, go down and tell that wooden Indian to turn on that water." "Hold that water, you--" "Hold that water!" "Turn her on, I say."	See Forumtopic:18057 pg. 19. The quote marks are not considered part of the sentence or phrase being italicized.
	"<i>Turn on that water!!--</i>" "Jones, go down and tell that wooden Indian to turn on that water." "Hold that water, you--" "<i>Hold that water!</i>" "Turn her on, I say."
5.	"Adieu!" repeat I, standing with my mouth wide open, looking perfectly blank. "How?"	See Forumtopic:24375. Adieu! and How? are considered complete sentences (just like Turn on that water!!-- in example 4 above), so the exclamation and question marks go inside the italics tags, but the quote marks remain outside.
	"<i>Adieu!</i>" repeat I, standing with my mouth wide open, looking perfectly blank. "<i>How?</i>"

ITALICIZED PHRASES, TITLES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
6.	Enacted 4 July, 1776	Guidelines: For dates and similar phrases, format the entire phrase as italics, rather than marking the words as italics and the numbers as non-italics. The reason is that many typefaces found in older texts used the same design for numbers in both regular and italics.
	<i>Enacted 4 July, 1776</i>
7.	December 3, morning. 1323 Picadilly Circus	"December 3, morning." counts as an entire sentence or section which is italicized, hence the period goes inside the tags.
	/* <i>December 3, morning.</i> 1323 Picadilly Circus */
8.	3 l. 5 s. 6 d. (as in pounds, shillings, pence)	forumtopic:23201 JulietS: "From a semantic point of view, we italicize numbers in dates because we believe, right or wrong, that had italic numbers been available they would have been used. In the case of currency, even if italic numbers had been available, we have no reason to believe that they would have been used. The numbers are separate from the (italicized) abbreviations that follow them. So, as ugly as it looks, I think that the l.s.d. abbreviations should continue to be italicized separately from the numbers...."
	3 <i>l.</i> 5 <i>s.</i> 6 <i>d.</i>
9.	Well, e.g., we saw the musical Oh, Calcutta! last week. We saw the movie Titanic!	See Forumtopic:15719 Oh Calcutta! is a complete italicized phrase. The exclamation mark is intrinsic to the name of the musical, so it is inside the italics tags. The exclamation mark is not intrinsic to the name of the movie Titanic so it is left outside even though it is italicized in the image.
	Well, <i>e.g.</i>, we saw the musical <i>Oh, Calcutta!</i> last week. We saw the movie <i>Titanic</i>!
10.	I liked the books Now, Voyager, The Cat in the Hat, and Fox in Sox!	Guidelines: If the italicized text consists of a series/list of words or names, mark these up with italics tags individually. Example from forumtopic:15719 illustrates this rule, and the exception for Now, Voyager. The comma after Now is intrinsic to the title of the book.
	I liked the books <i>Now, Voyager</i>, <i>The Cat in the Hat</i>, and <i>Fox in Sox</i>!
11.	[Footnote 1: Cf. Comento, ed. cit., Lez. 33, Vol. II, p. 129.]	An interesting case of a series of italicized words in a footnote citation. The strings between the commas are marked up individually. Forumpost:280659 ortonmc explains: "The italicized phrases are three different things. Comento is the title of the work being cited. ed. cit. is a Latin abbreviation which I believe stands for "the edition cited," or something close to that at any rate...."
	[Footnote 1: Cf. <i>Comento</i>, <i>ed. cit.</i>, <i>Lez.</i> 33, Vol. II, p. 129.]

Words in Small Capitals

BASIC EXAMPLES

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.	This is Small Caps	This is the basic example from the guidelines. Note that whole words including the larger sized "T", "S" and "C" go inside the <sc> tags, and the smaller-sized letters have been de-capitalized. See example 11 on marking up partial words for an explanation why this is so.
	<sc>This is Small Caps</sc>
2.	He said this is Small Caps!	Like italics and bold text, punctuation goes outside the tags unless it is an entire sentence or section that is in small caps, or the punctuation is itself part of a phrase, title or abbreviation that is in small caps.
	He said this is <sc>Small Caps</sc>!
3.	Dear Sir:	forumtopic:15719 pg. 2 discusses this example in the Guidelines on Letters/Correspondence. Some felt that there was an error here, and that, for consistency, the colon ought to be outside the tags. However, jhutch asserts that the guidelines are correct because "Dear Sir:" is a whole phrase/sentence.
	<sc>Dear Sir:</sc>
4.	Mr. Lyon's hat	No consensus on this yet. See forumtopic:21525 pg. 2.
	Mr. <sc>Lyon's</sc> hat or Mr. <sc>Lyon</sc>'s hat

ALL-CAPS and the ALL SMALL-CAPS RULE

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
5.	You cannot be serious about AARDVARKS	AARDVARKS has letters all the size size, and size is the same as standard capitals, so this is not a small-caps situation, and is formatted as ALL-CAPS. See forumtopic:21525.
	You cannot be serious about AARDVARKS
6.	You cannot be serious about aardvarks	AARDVARKS is all the same size and capital shaped but the size is smaller than a standard capital (compare aardvarks, You). This is sometimes called the all-small-caps rule. According to the guidelines: Format words that are printed in all small caps as ALL-CAPS, and surround the text with <sc> and </sc> markup.
	You cannot be serious about <sc>AARDVARKS</sc>
7.	Tea in the year mdcccli was a quiet affair. Tea in 1851 a.d. was a quiet affair. 9 p.m.	More examples illustrating the all-small-caps rule. The first 2 are from forumtopic:17392 A.D. and P.M. remain in capitals within the <sc> tags like AARDVARK above. The periods stay inside the tags, being part of abbreviations which are themselves in small-caps. The small-cap rule was debated and polled in forumtopic:17392. As a result, the guidelines were changed to their present form. forumtopic:18260 JulietS explains: "Yes, one of the major points of changing the small caps markup was to make it so that abbreviation such as A.D. or B.C. end up as capital letters and not lower case ... so that volunteers are not continually being irked by the thought "But those are supposed to be in caps", and also requires a somewhat different way of coding in the html.... forumpost:292105 A further explanation, from laurawisewell: "In post-processing, what most of us do with those ones is to apply a special CSS class that first transforms the text to lowercase and then renders that in small-caps. This is good because in the HTML document it appears in smaller capitals like the original, but if someone views it without CSS, or if they copy and paste that part of the document, it will render in all caps, which is better than it being in lowercase and not emphasised at all." forumtopic:18426 says that the old-style <sc>a.d.</sc> may still be seen. While it renders text which matches the scanned image, it is now wrong according to present guidelines.
	<sc>Tea</sc> in the year <sc>MDCCCLI</sc> was a quiet affair. <sc>Tea</sc> in 1851 <sc>A.D.</sc> was a quiet affair. 9 <sc>P.M.</sc>

SPECIAL RULES FOR HEADINGS

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
8.	CHAPTER topic Here is the chapter text....	See forumtopic:21525 pg. 2. According to the Guidelines: Words in headings (Chapter Headings, Section Headings, Captions, etc.) that are entirely all-capped should be formatted as all-caps without any <sc> </sc>. The first word of a chapter that is in Small Caps should be changed to mixed case without the tags. forumtopic:18260 JulietS says: "Headings that are in all capital letters of the same size, even if that size is somewhat smaller than other headings nearby, are treated as all caps. In this case, the font size change is up to the PPer...."
	CHAPTER TOPIC Here is the chapter text....
9.	Chapter Here is the chapter text....	forumtopic:18260 JulietS says: "Only headings that show capital letters in mixed sizes ... get the small caps markup (and appropriate upper and lower casing from the formatter)."
	<sc>Chapter</sc> Here is the chapter text....

NUMERALS

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
10.	14 July 1915 to 13 February 1916.	forumtopic:18418 and forumtopic:17043
	<sc>14 July 1915 to 13 February 1916.</sc>

MARKUP FOR PARTIAL WORDS

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
11.	Peaberry Peaberry Peaberry	When a word has large and small sized capital-shared letters, markup goes around the whole word as shown in Example 1. With regards to markup for part of a word, in forumtopic:21565 Pg. 64 Cally Soukup says: "It is possible to have smallcap markup in the middle of words, but only when smallcap miniscules [lowercase] are mixed with regular miniscules [lowercase]..." "The reason for all this is because of concerns about people cutting and pasting from the HTML into a text editor. As you know from being a printer, smallcap typefaces have "capitals" and "miniscules" just as regular typefaces do; it's just that their miniscules look like smaller versions of the capitals. If we mark up a word like <sc>Peaberry</sc>, then the PPer puts the whole word into the smallcap typeface, so it displays in smallcaps in the HTML, but if it gets copied into a plain-text editor, the initial capitalization is preserved, and it degrades gracefully to "Peaberry" from "PEABERRY"." "With the cases of "M.D.", we obviously don't want that to show up as "m.d." when copied into a text editor, so the Post Processor will do a special search for all smallcaps markup that contains only all-cap text, and instead of putting it into a smallcaps typeface, he or she will keep it as capital letters, but shrink them in the HTML (as I've done with the "smallcaps" in this post) to look like the right size for smallcaps. That way they'll copy-paste as M.D. etc."
	Pea<sc>berry</sc> <sc>Pea</sc>berry <sc>Peaberry</sc>

Lists of Items

Formatting of Lists of Items

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.		This image is adapted from the basic example given in the Guidelines. Note: Guidelines: Surround lists with /* and */ markers. Leave a blank line between these markers and the rest of the text. The markers will ensure the individual lines are not rewrapped during post-processing. The multiple columns are joined into a single column (where there is no special meaning to the columns being side by side).
	/* Andersen, Hans Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian Balboa, Vasco Nunez de Bierce, Ambrose Carroll, Lewis Churchill, Winston Columbus, Christopher Curie, Marie Daguerre, Louis J. M. Darwin, Charles Descartes, René Earhart, Amelia Einstein, Albert Freud, Sigmund Lewis, Sinclair Magellan, Ferdinand */
2.		This example shows a list with some very long list items which wrap onto a second line with a hanging indent. The problem is the use of /* */ markers will freeze text and line breaks in place, and this will inconvenience the Post-processor who may need to rewrap the text differently. Forumtopic:24163 stresses that this is a Project specific situation and the first thing to do is to post in the Project forum and seek the opinion of the Project Manager and/or Post-processor. A number of generic solutions were suggested in the forum thread: Option 1 suggested by JHowse and Garweyne and others, uses block quote /# #/ markers. This allows the text to wrap. The list items are kept separate by a blank line in between each item. laurawisewell says there is no need to mimic the hanging indents, but leave a note mentioning them. Option 2 which DaveKline favours, is to rejoin the long list items like a long line of poetry, the whole list kept within /* */ markers. Note in the example opposite, some words have been omitted to make the lines fit inside this table. In actuality, the full text would be included, of course. In both cases, it is considered important to leave a note for the Post-processor alerting him/her of what has been done, and the existence of hanging indents in the original image.
	(Option 1: Using /# #/ block quote markers) [**Note for PPer] /# 1658.--Blast furnace and forge at New Haven, Conn. 1679.--Father Hennepin discovers coal in Illinois. 1703.--Mordecai Lincoln ... establishes iron works at Scituate, Mass. 1717.--First bar iron exported ... to West Indies. #/ (Option 2: Using /* */ , rejoin long items like a long line of poetry) [**Note for PPer] /* 1658.--Blast furnace and forge at New Haven, Conn. 1679.--Father Hennepin discovers coal in Illinois. 1703.--Mordecai Lincoln ... iron works at Scituate, Mass. 1717.--First bar iron exported ... to West Indies. */

Tables

Please see this wiki gallery of table layouts.

Extra Spacing/Stars/Line Between Paragraphs

VARIOUS FEATURES MARKED UP AS THOUGHT-BREAKS

No.	Image	Remarks
	Correctly Formatted Text
1.		A thought-break in the form of extra space between paragraphs. Note the difference in spacing before the paragraphs beginning "All right" and "It was in...."
	Her curses were heard within. She threatened fight, but dropped it. "All right," she said as she went down. "I'll fix you, Sheeny Rose!" <tb> It was in the exact same spot where Nigger Martha had sat and died that Grace met her enemy the
2.		A line type thought-break. This is from a publisher's advertisement found at the end of a book.
	which holds the reader's attention from the very first adventure to the final outcome. <tb> <i>A NEW NOVEL</i> <sc>By</sc> JAMES LANE ALLEN The Heroine in Bronze <i>Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.35 net</i> In "The Heroine in Bronze" Mr. Allen has written with exquisite felicity of thought and expression a novel that is unique