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1. The key information contained in visual elements – graphs, graphics, infographics and flow charts – must be summarised in the text.
2. Do not rely on colour to convey information. The important visual information must be understandable in black and white before you add colour. Paste graphs into the Colblindor website to check. ‘Get it right in black and white’.
3. If using coloured text or text on a coloured background, it must comply with WCAG colour contrast requirements.

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The first use of 'COVID-19' in every document should spell it out before the acronym, thus: 'coronavirus (COVID-19)'

Alt text

Government Digital Service advice on alt text is:

Describe what’s happening in the image in the body text and leave the ‘Alt text’ field empty. In the context of PHE content, 'image' can be taken to mean graphs, maps and any other visual element.

If a good description of the graph or map is in the main body text, then adding it to alt text would only result in duplication and ‘auditory clutter’ for screen reader users.

Avoid abbreviations

Spell out e.g. as ‘for example,’ (unless space constraints, in which case write ‘eg’)

Spell out i.e. as ‘that is,’ (unless space constraints, in which case write ‘ie’)

Spell out ‘etc’ as ‘and so on’.

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Body copy should be Arial 12 point with line spacing set to ‘At last 16 pt’.

Single Use a single space after full stops, not double space. Everything

All text left justified, no paragraph indents for new paragraphs.

Bold and italics

No italics except for scientific names (eg E.coli), so do .

Do not use italics for quotations, footnotes or any other purpose.

Italicised species names are allowed in document titles and headings.

Avoid bold, although it can be used sparingly for emphasis.

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Never capitalise whole words for emphasis. Capitalised words can be mistaken for acronyms, a sequence of capitalised words is difficult to read.

If emphasis is requiredabsolutely necessary, use bold (sparingly).

COVID-19

COVID-19 is an acronymabbreviation.

1. It must always be spelt in capitals.
2. The first use of 'COVID-19' in every document should spell out the word 'coronavirus' before giving the acronym, thus: 'coronavirus (COVID-19)'

Government Digital Service has a style guide devoted entirely to COVID-related content.

Dates

23 March not ‘23rd of March’.

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• '2/10/19' should be written out as '2 October 2019'
• similarly, year periods must not use forward slashes but use the word 'to': thus 2019/20 must be written out as '2019 to 2020'

Flow charts

Flow charts need a text alternative. A simple summary, or pointing to the data somewhere else, isn’t enough.

PHE's Fetal anomaly screening: care pathways page has several good examples of flow charts accompanied by text alternatives.

Footnotes

Use superscript numbers¹. The footnote text should be in 10 point font.

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'Of adults turning 70 during quarter 3, 17% were vaccinated by the end of March 2021'

or

'Seventeen percent per cent of adults turning 70...' etc

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1. The correct title is entered in the ‘Title’ field. 2.
2. The ‘Author’ is always Public Health England.
3. Add main subject tags with semi-colon separators into the ‘Keywords’ field.

References

We put all academic references in a numbered list at the end of the document.

We follow Government Digital Service requirements, thus:

References should be easy to understand by anyone, not just specialists.

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We number references, to help with linking to them from the main text, see next section.

Linking to references at the end of a document

References within with the main text to end references do not use the title etc but just the number they've been assigned one or more of the academic references in the numbered list of references at the end .References to these end reference numbers should be a) of the document should be in the following format:

• full-sized numbers

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• in round brackets

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• within the sentence ie not after the full stops

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• with a space between the text and bracket

For example: 'Studies show that incidence of of infection are restricted to certain localities (9).'

If multiple references need to be referred to, put them in the same bracket, with commas separating them (5, 6, 7).

If a consecutive series of references needs to be referred tois required, use the word 'to' instead of a hyphen (9 to 15) not (9-15).

Reference numbers like this, within the text, must hyperlink to the respective number in the References section, using Word's Bookmark functionality.

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 'Data set' and 'data sets', not 'dataset' and 'datasets'.

Government is not capitalised unless at the start of a sentence or referring to the name of a specific government, for example, the Government of Nepal.

Tables

Keep tables as simple as possible. Do not use colour. Solid margins / borders.

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Government Digital Service style guide

Government Digital Service COVID style guide

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

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