Formatting & writing standards
Documentation standards for readable policy manuals
Every document in the Kaspelon library follows the same typography, spacing, alignment, and heading rules. Nothing here is creative. All of it is deliberate, because a manual gets printed, skimmed, and cited long after it is written.
Body text
12 point or larger, set ragged right so the reader never fights a word-spaced column.
Line spacing
1.5 line height, with paragraph spacing kept separate from the leading itself.
Margins
One inch all round, so the page keeps a clear reading frame on paper and on screen.
Body typography
Type size and spacing
Body text runs at 12 point or larger. Below that, policy documents become hard to read on paper and worse on a phone, which is where a growing share of readers open them. A records retention schedule that was tolerable in print at 10 point is genuinely unusable on a handset at 7:30 in the morning.
Line spacing is set to 1.5, which gives the eye room to track from the end of one line to the start of the next without losing its place in a long clause. Paragraph spacing is a separate setting: the blank gap between paragraphs does more for scanning than extra leading inside them ever will, because a reader skimming for one obligation is looking for gaps, not for breath.
Specimen · 12 point floor against 16px screen body
12
point minimum for any printed policy body
1.5
line height on an 8px baseline grid
1 in
margin on all four sides of the page
16px
is the floor for the same document on screen
The screen floor sits above the print floor on purpose. A handset at arm's length is a harder reading condition than an A4 sheet under office light, and the same clause has to survive both.
Left alignment and why it holds
Text stays left-aligned throughout the library. Justified text creates uneven word spacing that slows reading, and the effect is worse in documents full of long terms such as authorized representative or records retention schedule, where the typesetter has fewer places to break a line. Left alignment also keeps a consistent starting point down the page, which is what makes scanning a column of clauses fast. The Queen Mary University of London policy writing guidance lands on the same convention.
Same clause, two settings
Justified · long-word clauses
An authorized representative must retain the records described in the schedule for the stated period.
Left aligned · the setting we ship
An authorized representative must retain the records described in the schedule for the stated period.
Fonts that hold up in policy documents
We set headings and body in Source Sans 3, the same formal guidance the writing standard points at, because it stays legible at 12 point and does not fight the reader at 9 point inside a table. UniversalClass's policy-manual formatting advice arrives at the same practical ground from a different direction: readable serif or sans choices such as Times New Roman or Calibri, 10- or 12-point body text, and one-inch margins.
Any of those work. The rule is to pick one family, weight it consistently, and never let a manual grow two body faces because a section was drafted in a different tool. A reader notices a font switch long before they notice a heading level.
Headings
Archivo
Section and clause heads, set flush left at the locked display step so a manual has one voice from cover to appendix.
Body
Source Sans 3
Prose at 16px on screen and 12 point on paper, ragged right on an 8px baseline in both cases.
Numerals
4.2.1
A mono face owns clause numbers and unit marks only. It never sets a sentence, so a number never looks like prose.
Visual hierarchy in long documents
A reader should be able to tell a section from a subsection from a clause without reading the words. We build hierarchy with size and weight rather than color, because manuals get photocopied in black and white and a hierarchy that depends on a blue heading disappears on the copy machine. Three heading levels is the practical maximum; past that, readers stop tracking which level they are in.
White space and negative space
White space is a reading aid, not a design flourish. One-inch margins, a clear gap before each heading, and space around lists keep the page from reading as a solid block. The common mistake runs the other way too: pages so airy that a reader scrolls past three screens to find a single obligation. Our rule of thumb is that a reader should see at least two headings per screenful and never a full screen of uninterrupted margin.
Lists & numbering
Lists, bullets, and numbering
Bullets for unordered items, numbers for anything a reader might cite or follow in sequence. Both are indented consistently and both begin with a parallel construction, so a list of five conditions reads as five conditions rather than five different sentence shapes. Nested lists stop at two levels; a third level usually means the clause should be split into its own numbered section.
Bullets — unordered
- A parallel opening verb on every item: review, retain, notify, archive.
- One idea per bullet. Two ideas joined by "and" belong in a numbered step.
- Consistent indent, so a long item wraps under its own text and not back to the margin.
Numbers — citable
- Steps a reader follows in order, from drafting to signature to publication.
- Conditions that will be referenced later by number in training slides or an audit note.
- Numbering that survives edits because the numbering lives in the manual structure, not in the sentence.
Naming files and heading documents
Every document carries a title that states its subject and its type: Records Retention Policy, Vendor Onboarding Procedure, Access Review Standard. File names mirror the title in lowercase with hyphens between words, so a manual downloaded to a shared drive still reads correctly in a folder list.
Numbers in a manual are assigned by the library, not by the author, so nothing gets renumbered when a section moves. This is where documentation standards meet information architecture, and the two pages should be read together.
Title and file name are set once, at publication. If the subject of a document changes enough to rename it, it becomes a new document with a new number rather than a renamed old one — the archived copy keeps its original title.
Section by section
Applying the standards to an existing manual
You don't need to rebuild a manual to apply these rules. Work through one section at a time, leave the rest in the drawer, and nobody has to stop using the document while it is being fixed.
-
01
Take one section and set the type
Body at 12 point or above with 1.5 line spacing, one-inch margins, left-aligned, and ragged right. Everything else in the document stays exactly as it is for the moment.
-
02
Rebuild the heading levels
Three levels maximum, hierarchy carried by size and weight. Then renumber the clauses to match, since the numbering follows the heading structure and not the other way around.
-
03
Convert the lists
Parallel openers, one idea per item, two levels of nesting at most. Any list of three with different sentence shapes in it becomes three items with the same shape.
-
04
Read it beside an untouched section
Space the lists, check that two headings appear per screenful, and set the two sections side by side. The difference is usually obvious enough that the rest of the conversion argues for itself.
Superseded guidance
Three rules from earlier editions still turn up in older manuals. They are kept here so a reader who finds them in a drawer knows what replaced them.
Single spacing — formerly used to fit more clauses on a page. Replaced by 1.5 line spacing, which is worth the extra paper.
Justified body text — retired across the library. Left alignment is the setting on every current document.
Color-coded heading levels — never adopted here. Manuals are copied in black and white, so hierarchy is carried by size and weight instead.
Every rule on this page is a printing decision before it is a document decision. Type size, spacing, alignment, and hierarchy were settled because a policy manual gets read on a phone in a hallway and on paper at a review meeting in the same week. Standards like these do not make a policy better. They make it findable, and that is usually what a reader needs first.
Questions about formatting
Questions we get about these standards
Can we keep our current font instead of Source Sans 3?
Yes, provided it holds 12 point body and 9 point table text without strain. Times New Roman and Calibri both do. The rule that matters is consistency: one body face for the whole manual, not one per department.
Do we have to renumber everything when a section moves?
Only inside the section that moves, and the library assigns the numbers rather than the author. Numbers follow the heading structure, so a clause that relocates takes its section's numbering with it instead of leaving gaps behind.
What about tables and forms inside a policy?
Tables follow the same body rules, and a table cell never goes below 9 point. If a table needs a smaller face to fit, the table is carrying too many columns and should be split into two.
Where do these standards stop and the writing guidance start?
This page covers the page: type, spacing, alignment, hierarchy, lists, and naming. The writing guidance covers the sentences themselves. Read them together when you are drafting, and separately when you are formatting an existing manual.
Have a formatting question about a clause in front of you?
Send the section and the surrounding headings. We will tell you which rule applies and where the standard sits in the library.