Formatting checklist - intranet
This list covers most common formatting standards for the University intranet as applied in Academic
Services. If you have questions about the points below, contact Vanessa Chesterton.
Page structure and settings
 Pages conform to either the “choice” or “information” page structure, unless agreed otherwise
with a Web Coordination Officer.
 Pages have a title, which is sentence-capitalised and acts as the main heading for the page.
 Pages have a filename which is lower-case, short and informative.
 Pages have a menu name, based on the page title but shortened if necessary.
 The Description field in the Meta Data tab is filled with a short sentence describing the page.
Text formatting
 When pasting text, the Paste as text option has been used. In Firefox or Chrome, use the
keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V.
 Extra spacing is removed. This includes spacing between lines, before and after headings,
and more than one space between sentences.
 All text, including titles, headings and links, is sentence-capitalised – only words that would be
capitalised in a normal sentence have a capital letter.
 All text is left-justified.
 If necessary, text is highlighted using bold – avoid underlining, italics, colouring or all-caps.
 Dates are formatted as 6 November 2009, times as 09.00, 15.30.
Headings and titles
 Headings have been used throughout the page, starting just after the page introduction.
 Headings have been marked starting with Heading 2 in the paragraph styles dropdown. This
includes headings in the right-hand column.
 Headings are a sensible length and have no full stops, colons or semi-colons at the end.
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Links and bookmarks
 Each link and bookmark on the page goes where expected (check using page preview).
 All link text makes sense out of context, and says where the link is going to.
 Links to web pages – even pages from outside the University – open in the same window.
 Links do not include spaces before or after, or any punctuation after the link.
 Website addresses visible on the page are written without the ‘http://’ prefix and without any “/”
at the end.
PDFs and other documents
 Document titles include their type and file size in the following format: (PDF – 122KB).
 Links to PDFs and other documents follow the format: Web guidelines (PDF - 122KB).
Images
 Images are the proper size for the page:
Images on 3-column pages: 430x150px for a banner at the top of the page, 220px across for
the right-hand column, 190px across for the right-hand column feature element (with text).
Images on landing pages: 668x246px for the scrolling banner (take the 50px overlay into
consideration), 199x205px to fill the blocks at the bottom of the page.
 All images have ALT text which describes the image. If using an image as a link, the ALT text
should clarify where the link is going rather than describe the image.
 Only use images that are licensed to be used by or that belong to the University.
Tables
 Tables are only used to present data.
 Merged cells and complicated table layouts are avoided.
 Tables have header rows/columns, a caption, and a summary defined.
Videos and podcasts
 All videos and podcasts have a transcript (or other text equivalent) which is available on or
from the page they are embedded in.
Content cupboards
 Large, complex pages are presented using headings and anchors, not content cupboards.
 Content cupboards may be used for footnoting ancillary content, or for listing a series of
separate items where a user will only need to access one cupboard (eg meeting dates).
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