4.2.3. Text preparation

General

• Use plain text (no formatting).
• Do not justify the text or use word splits or hyphens at the end of a line, even for compound words.
• Follow punctuation spacing rules: see Section 6.4.
• Be logical and consistent when processing the text (use the same parameters for identical elements of a document).

Special characters

• Use the special characters available.
• Avoid all transliteration (‘ss’ for ‘ß’, ‘ue’ for ‘ü’, etc.).
• Always use the numbers 1 and 0 on the keyboard, not upper-case ‘l’ or ‘O’ in their place.
• Ellipses (…) are obtained by typing Alt 0133 or Ctrl-Alt-full stop (.) (do not use three consecutive full stops (...)).

Numbers

• Numbers expressing a quantity: separate each group of three numbers by a hard (protected) space, not a point (e.g. 300 000).
• Figures expressing numbering, such as years, folios, etc.: no space (e.g. 1961, p. 2064).
• Decimal numbers: in English texts, use a point on the baseline (e.g. 13.6). Special rules apply for the Official Journal and multilingual texts (see Section 6.5).
• Follow the rules for writing out numbers: see Section 10.5.

Protected spaces

• Use to prevent elements that must stay together from being separated at the end of a line.

• Use, for example, in the following cases and in the cases indicated in the rules of punctuation (see Section 6.4):

  No•OJ L•10•000

  p.•OJ C•Mr C.•M. Dupont

  NB:

  In Word, the hard space is obtained by typing Alt 0160 or Ctrl-Shift-space bar.

Graphics, images and tables

• Supply graphics and images in separate files, in high-resolution format.
• Check copyright for images and illustrations.
• Clearly mark the place where the image/graphic is to be inserted using a marker (<IMAGE1>, <GRAPHIC1>, <TABLE1>, etc.).
• Supply Excel files separately.

Quotation marks

• Use the quotation marks appropriate to the language.

• There are two levels of quotation marks in English (the Word shortcut is given in brackets):

  level 1
  (main quotation)‘…’(Alt 0145/Alt 0146)

  level 2
  (quotation within quotation)“…”(Alt 0147/Alt 0148)

  Any further levels are repeats of levels 1 and 2.

Apostrophe

• Use the correct typographical apostrophe (’ or ’, depending on the type of character used), obtained by typing Alt 0146, not the apostrophe of the keyboard (').

Upper/lower-case letters

• Never type a heading entirely in upper case letters. When required, the contractor can automatically capitalise a heading.
• Apply upper/lower-case letters in accordance with the rules of this style guide (see Section 10.4).

Footnotes

• Use only the function References/Insert footnote.
• It is pointless to manually reformat footnote numbers for a manuscript intended to be produced on paper. For example, Word generates 1 - / proofreaders apply(¹). The contractor recovers only the Footnote function; it is then the responsibility of the contractor to reformat the footnote numbers correctly, following the conventions of this style guide.
• Footnotes must be clearly numbered in Arabic numerals (other symbols, such as asterisks or letters, should only be used in special cases).
• Avoid notes of the type ‘Idem’ or ‘Ibidem’, as the page layout of the printed work will be different to that of the original manuscript.
• The reference to a footnote (including the brackets) is always composed in light roman (even in texts or headings written in italics or bold).

Dashes

• Use an em dash (Alt 0151) to introduce elements in a list (same rule for all languages).

Headings

• Do not use manual formatting. Instead, use a style sheet.
• If a particular style sheet does not exist, use Word styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Normal, etc.).

• Never type a heading entirely in upper-case letters.