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Introduction
The new PHE report template has been designed so it is accessible to all users to meet the requirements of Accessibility legislation from 23 September 2020.
The template has been designed to restrict the creation of non-accessible content.
The PHE Publishing team cannot accept any submissions in the previous ‘non-accessible’ PHE template after 23 September 2020. Any exception to this – such as when a report is already ‘in progress’ in the previous template – will require prior agreement with the Publishing team.
It is easier to write your document straight into the template rather than using a standard Word document , or similar, and then copying and pasting into the template.
If pasting copy from another document, select ‘Paste | Keep text only’ from the Paste Options button on the Home tab or after right-clicking.
Download the new template
Download the new template by clicking on the image below.
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About the PHE ‘boilerplate’ page
This page has been moved to form the final page of each report (as you create pages above it, this page will move down accordingly).
It has options to:
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No other content should be applied to this page.
Style panel
The standard toolbar is locked and greyed out in the template. This is because you must use the preset PHE styles to format your document.
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To open the Styles panel, select the small arrow icon positioned bottom right (circled above) or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S.
Available text styles in style panel
To apply a style, position the cursor in the relevant paragraph or heading and click on the appropriate style in the style panel.
To change a style, highlight the relevant text or paragraph and apply the new style.
Portrait and landscape orientation of pages
The template automatically generates portrait dimension pages but you can insert landscape pages as required.
To insert a landscape page:
- click on the Layout tab
- click on the small arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the ‘Page setup’ menu to open the page setup window
- on the Margins tab, change the orientation to landscape
- on the ‘apply to’ dropdown menu, select ‘This point forward’
- repeat at the point you want to return the page to portrait
Page breaks
To create a page break:
- click the cursor where you want the page to break
- go to Insert tab in the top menu
- click Page Break icon
Headings
Use the heading styles to give your document a logical structure and help users of assistive technology to navigate it. These are preset in the style panel:
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- use the headings in sequence: a Heading 3 needs to be preceded by a Heading 2
- headings should be clear and concise and fit into a single line in the table of contents
- a page break will automatically be added before each new Chapter header
- the styles are set up to have a space before and after text. Don’t add extra paragraph returns to increase the space between headings or paragraphs
Table of contents
Do not enter the contents manually. They are automatically generated as you work through the document. The table of contents has been set up so that any text with the style Heading 1 and Heading 2 will be automatically included in the table of contents when it is updated.
The contents panel is an automated section, that generates by the correct use of header formatting in the report. Right-click on the first item in contents to populate the content panel or update the numbering.
Text boxes
Don't use manually generated text boxes. Use the style panel options:
Bullets and lists
Preset styles have been created for bullet points:
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To restart the numbering, right-click in the paragraph and select ‘Restart at 1’ or ‘Set numbering value’.
Links
When creating hyperlinks:
- the text containing the link should be a specific description of the destination page
- don’t display the full URL and don’t use directional text such as ‘click here’
- don’t link to another doc such as a PDF, link to the page it sits on
- create your hyperlink in Word as normal and then apply Hyperlink in the style panel
Front cover image panel
The shaded area on the cover can be used for an image providing:
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If no image is available or a cover image is not required, delete the box.
Images, charts and other visual content
Charts and tables
Tables should only be used to present data (effectively that means number data) and use as simple a table structure as possible.
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You should ensure that colour is not the only means of conveying information.
Alt text
Alt text should describe what graphs or charts show and tell users where in the document they can find more information about them. It is not a replacement for a caption. Charts and tables still require a caption or title.
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Read our guide to making your charts and tables more accessible.
Using citation software
If you have a citation tool such as EndNote or Mendeley, the template may not accommodate the citation assembly within the doc. If so, assemble the bibliography or references ‘offline’ and then import into the template and format appropriately.
PHE style: dos and don’ts
- use sentence case
- don’t manually create headers (use the preset styles)
- avoid using italics for emphasis (and only use for valid scientific terms such as scientific binomials, such as Escherichia coli)
- use single quotation marks for publication titles or hyperlinks for online publications
- don’t italicise quotes: use the blockquote style for quotes longer than a few sentences
- don’t use footnotes at foot of page, incorporate footnote text into the main body of the document
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