To volunteer to help proofread and format documents for the library, write to the managing editor of the section of the Baha'i Library you'd like to help with. Your help would be greatly appreciated, so please do contact us. All contributors to the Baha'i Library are asked to follow this style sheet as closely as possible, though exceptions can be made where context requires.
The basis for much of the content of this style sheet is the Chicago Manual of Style. It is the style book used by agencies of the USBNC such as the Research and Review Offices, and is by and large the American standard. -J.W.
| Blockquotes | Use
as needed. A general rule is that, if a quotation takes up more than 3 lines of
text, it should be indented on both margins (making it take up 4-5 lines). Font
size should be left standard, not made smaller. I use either no <br> or one <br> before and after a <blockquote>, depending on how many spaces I want. The one thing to remember is that a blockquote is not an "inline" formatting element, meaning that the browser will automatically insert one carriage return both before and after a blockquote. If you just want to indent the left margin only, you can use <dl>, <ol>, or <ul>. Or if you want to be exact about the size of the indent, you can embed it in a table, e.g. <table align=center cellpadding=10 width=90%> where you can control cellpadding and table width to control the exact whitespace above and to the sides of the paragraph. |
| Diacritics
and special characters (see more on diacritics and the preface to my thesis; see also a Guardian [UK] article on the nature of transliteration.) |
use
as desired, but be consistent. If you decide to use accents for words like
"Bahá'í," then all Arabic and Persian terms in the document must
have diacritics where needed. Indicate if any spelling or diacritics have been
changed from the original. Click here for proper transliterations of the titles of Baha'u'llah's tablets as scanned from Taherzadeh's Revelation of Baha'u'llah books. subdot/underdot: this diacritic is not displayed in any common browser font, so it is never used online. Some choose to use an underline to represent an underdot, as in Muhammad; this is at your discretion. when using diacritics, always express them in their "special character" code, never by a formatted character. That is, make sure that an accented 'a' has the source code á. always use plain ASCII coding, never special characters, for punctuation marks. For example, for m-dash always use —, for ellipses always use three dots (...), and use straight apostrophes and quotation marks instead of "smart" or curly ones. Apostrophes, used in standard Baha'i transliteration to represent both `ayn — ‘ — and hamza — ’ — are both rendered here by the straight apostrophe — ' — unless all Persian/Arabic in the document will have diacritics. See more on ayn and hamza at bahai-library.org/theses/dying |
| Document formatting / fonts | as a general rule, user customizability must be maximized at the cost of design
specificity. For example: never specify page width (e.g., in a table 600 pixels wide), save where specifically required. Readers must be allowed to size their browser windows, and hence the page width being viewed; when page width is specified, users with any browser window of a different size or with too large or too small a font will not be able to view the text properly. never specify font faces or colors, save where specifically required never specify a font size for an entire document, save where specifically required. However, do specify +1 to +3 font sizes for headers and -1 to -2 font sizes for footnotes and the like. |
| Footnotes | if
possible, i.e. if your converter does it automatically or you feel like doing
it by hand, each footnote should have a unique anchor (an
<a=href/name> combination) and a unique link to the
footnote with a backlink back to the text. The code for this would be as
follows: blah blah blah.<a href=#n1 name=#1><sup><small>[1]</small></sup></a> blah blah blah blah ... <b>Notes</b><br> <a name=#n1 href=#1><sup><small>[1]</small></sup></a> However, if this is too much work, you're welcome to give each footnote the same link to a single point at the end of the document. The code for this would be <a href=#notes><sup><small>[1]</small></sup></a> with an accompanying <a name=notes></a> at the end, just before the footnotes section. This method can be done in one step with a search-and-replace. |
| Footer info | Use
this code for all footers. Note that the top "back to" link should be two lines
for any document that's posted online as a subsection of a larger document,
e.g. as a chapter from an article; otherwise, the first "back to" link will be
removed. <br><br> <table bgcolor="#eeffff" background=../back015.gif align=center border=1 cellpadding=7> <tr><td align=center> <a href=contents.html>Back to [name of book] table of contents</a><br> <a href=index.html>Back to [name of directory]</a> <hr width=150 size=1 align=center> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/">Baha'i Academics Resource Library</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/writings/">Sacred Writings</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/search/">Search</a> <br> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/etc/primary.html">Primary sources</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/etc/secondary.html">Secondary sources</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/etc/resources.html">Resources and etc.</a> <br> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/wwwboard/">Bulletin board</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/etc/links.html">Links</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/personal/">Personal pages</a> <b>][</b> <a href="http://bahai-library.org/etc/othersites.html">Other sites hosted by the Library</a> </td></tr></table> </body></html> documents that are sections of a larger document, such as chapters of a book, should have "previous" and "next" links above the footer. Arrows should be included, preferably these:  and  . Here is the code I use:<br><br><hr width=300 size=1 noshade> <center> <a href="1.html"><img src=http://bahai-library.org/prev.gif height=18 width=25> Previous Section</a> <a href="3.html">Next Section <img src=http://bahai-library.org/next.gif height=18 width=25></a> </center> |
| Formatting of original | if a document has any historical interest, original formatting, spelling (transliteration), and diacritics should be used. A document can be considered "historical" if it's any article published before 1970 or any book published before 1940. Spellings and diacritics may only be updated if all foreign terms in the entire document are updated consistently; for example, if you wish to update "Baha Allah" to "Bahá'u'lláh," then "Abdul Baha" would also have to be updated to "Abdu'l-Bahá." |
| Header info | Meta
tags can be used as desired. I personally don't bother with them, but don't
mind if others use them. Use this code for all headers: <html><head><title>Blah blah</title></head><body bgcolor=white vlink=#BF1000 link=#004834> documents that are sections of a larger document, such as chapters of a book, should have "previous" and "next" links at the top of a page. Arrows should be included, preferably these: and . Here is the code I use:<center> <img src=http://bahai-library.org/prev.gif height=18 width=25> <a href="1.html">Previous Section</a> <a href="3.html">Next Section</a> <img src=http://bahai-library.org/next.gif height=18 width=25> </center> <hr width=300 size=1 noshade><br><br> |
| HTML converters | Editors are welcome to use GUI-based html converters, like FrontPage, DreamWeaver, PageMill, and Netscape Composer. The only exception is that we cannot use Microsoft Word to convert documents to html, because the code it produces is heavily padded and sometimes impossible to edit. My preference is to do all html coding by hand. Most items posted to the Baha'i Library will use quite simple formatting, sometimes employing no more than a dozen basic tags (e.g. <br>, <div>, <ol>, <blockquote>, <center>, <b>, <i>, <font>, and <pre>). With so few, it's sometimes easiest to code just by using the search-and-replace feature of your word processor. For example, to add line breaks in a Word document, search for all |
| Hyphens / dashes | retain
hyphens when used to indicate long dash (m-dash). If possible, replace
all dashes, whether indicated by one or two hyphens and with or without padding
spaces, with the following: blah blah — blah blah .
That is, use the special character code for the dash, and include one padding
space before and after remove hyphens that were used simply to indicate a word break across lines or across pages, and recombine the word. These breaks are merely an artifact of the printing process and do not need to be retained. |
| Page breaks / page numbers | always include in published works (where possible); always omit in
unpublished works. retain page numbers in tables of contents and indexes. Even though a reader won't "turn" to the page in question, page numbers are still useful to indicate length of a chapter (in tables of contents) and to indicate roughly where a citation is (in indexes). always indicate the page number at the top of its page, even if in the original published document the page numbers were at the bottom. This improves readability online, where a user scrolls down to read. include a horizontal rule to indicate the page break. I prefer a plain <hr>. Formatted rules, such as <hr size=2> or <hr noshade> emphasize the rule too much. A plain, single pixel height, shaded rule is about right. my preferred format to indicate page breaks and numbers is as follows: blah blah blah blah.<br><br> <hr><small>[page 123]</small><br><br> blah blah blah blah |
| Paragraphs / carriage returns | never
use the <p> tag. For left or right paragraph alignment, use <div> with
a combination of <br> as
needed. For center alignment, use either <div> or <center>.
For paragraph breaks ("carriage returns"), use <br> for one
break and <br><br> for two breaks. The
reason for this is that <p> is a "logical"
tag, not a "physical" tag, and is interpreted differently by different browsers and/or
in different context; using <br> allows greater control over formatting. |
| Photos
/ images Technical questions about scanning and graphical work can be directed to the Managing Editor of the Visuals section, Dan Shown (dan@bahai-library.org) |
align center, unless otherwise necessary optimize all graphics to minimal file size. File size is a function of resolution (see below) and compression, or "quality." Graphical programs usually measure compression on a scale of 1-100 or, in the case of Photoshop, 1-12. For anything on the web, a high quality (= low compression) image is good at Photoshop's 6 out of 12 (50%), and may even be good enough at 4/12 (33%). A low quality (= high compression) image is good at 2/12 (17%). ignore the "72ppi" or the "96ppi"standards. Rather, size graphics according to the best appearance in an 800x600 browser window (assuming user has, on average, a 1024x768 monitor). A graphics program might display an image based, not on the actual pixel size, but on other factors like print size or zoom. A browser, though, will always display 1 pixel of an image on 1 pixel of the monitor, so an image that's 50 pixels wide and 40 pixels high will always take up exactly 50x40 pixels of the monitor. We thus don't use measurements like "pixels per inch" (ppi) or "dots per inch" (dpi) because we only care about the raw number of pixels, not the inch. Resolution does matter when scanning, though, because the higher the input resolution, the better the quality. Input all scanned material at minimum 200ppi, up to 600ppi for highly-detailed items. Far more quality is lost by a low-resolution image input in a low-res scan than by a high-res scan reduced to a low-res image. For more, see http://scantips.com if image has much detail, e.g. a scan of tiny text or a crowd of faces, include a link to a larger and higher resolution image in a new window. Optimize the resolution of high-quality images down to just above the point where image deterioration can be seen. With detailed images, a resolution of up to 300ppi may be considered, and up to 200ppi should in most cases be sufficient. An example of how I do this and the coding I use is http://bahai-library.org/east-asia/taiwan/3-7.html black-and-white originals should always be scanned in greyscale, never black-and-white. When optimized for the web, the shades may be reduced to 8-16 colors. Example: As a demonstration of much of the above, compare the two samples in example.jpg. On the left is a word scanned at 72ppi and saved in 2-color B&W. On the right is a scan of the same word (from a different original) scanned at 300ppi and saved in 4-color greyscale, and then reduced to 72ppi. |
| Standard Statement of Responsibility (list of names, sources, and/or document history) |
always
include names, where applicable, of a document's contributor, author, compiler,
editor, scanner/typist, proofreader, formatter, and html converter. Include dates, where known, in 4-digit month/year format (e.g. 05/01).
If the document was mirrored from elsewhere, include a link to the document's original URL. Always specify if permission has been obtained and, if so, from whom: author and/or editor and/or publisher. Use this code, and place it immediately after the body tag. Add specific citations or document history as needed: <div align=right><small>scanner/typist/proofreader/formatter/converter;<br>contributed by Joe Smith / mirrored with permission from xyz.com;<br>posted online with permission of author/editor/publisher;<br>any other relevant notes, such as about diacritics</small></div><hr width=200 size=1 noshade align=right><br> |
| Tables of contents | for
general tables of contents, as in for a book, retain page numbers (if
applicable) and put the table of contents in monospaced font, with dot leaders
(.....) out to the number. See any table of contents at
http://bahai-library.org/books for an example. Either <tt>
or <pre> can be used to accomplish the same effect (note
that IE can have trouble displaying spacing between links in the
<pre> tag). for items with an internal divisions, use internal tables of contents at the top of the item where applicable. For example, I use this code: <br><hr width=200 align=left><br> <b>Jump to the following sections:</b> <ul><li><a href=#intro>Introduction</a> <li><a href=#main>My main points</a> <li><a href=#biblio>Books I used</a> <li><a href=#notes>Footnotes</a> </ul> <br><hr width=200 align=left><br> |
| Tabs / indents | use
3-5 nonbreaking spaces, e.g. . include tab indent before each new paragraph of any item, unless context requires left justification. Be careful that your word formatter does not turn your tab indents into margin indents, because the latter will not convert automatically into a tab or . |
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