The CORE Econ website uses essential cookies to make our website work. You may disable these using your browser settings but this may affect website functionality (such as your access to logged-in resources). We would also like to use analytics cookies to help us improve the functionality of our website and improve your user experience. These analytics cookies will be set only if you accept. We do not sell or otherwise transfer personal data or usage data to any third parties or use it for any other purpose. For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Privacy policy.

Preparing content for production

Formatting your documents with digitization in mind

During EBW’s digitization step of the production process, many styling features of the manuscript will be stripped out, since they are merely visual prompts specific to MS Word or Google Docs. This is why we use a system of explicit formatting and tagging in our content, which are never lost between different editing applications.

To ensure that your markups are preserved during digitization, use only the formatting indicated within the following list, together with the relevant feature tags.

  • Heading levels: Apply the correct heading level to the relevant text by using the styles and formatting menu.
  • Paragraphs: Separate paragraphs using two carriage returns (that is, one full blank line), not half a line of padding.
  • Bold: Use bold font to indicate defined terms. Avoid using bold font for emphasis; usage besides indicating defined terms is at the copy-editor’s discretion.
  • Italics: Use according to the house style (for occasional word emphasis and for the relevant publication titles).
  • Bulleted or numbered lists: Add these from the formatting menu. There is no need to add extra carriage returns or indents.
  • Tables: Insert tables using the document menu. Do not use text boxes to form a table.
  • Hyperlinks: See the instructions for linking given in the feature set section of this documentation.
    • All external links must be shortened to a consistent style using CORE’s short-link style. They can be inserted using the document menu, or presented within the text in this format: ‘Adam Smith’s [*Wealth of Nations*](https://tinyco.re/1234567) is a good resource.’
    • Indicate links to internal resources (another unit, figure, exercise, and so forth, within the book) by underlining them if they are explicit, or in this format if they are implicit: ‘Refer to [Unit 2](EBW insert link) for an explanation of how markets work.’
  • Special characters: Insert special characters, including basic subscript and superscript characters, from the document menu, or copy these frequently used computer-readable Unicode characters when you need to use them in your writing:
    • En dash –
    • Ellipsis …
    • Minus sign −
      Other Unicode characters can be found here (copy and paste the ‘string.toLowerCase()’ option).
  • Maths and formulas: When inserting a formula or piece of maths, provide a screenshot of the desired display within the manuscript to ensure that the digitizer achieves the desired layout for the maths. Then, either typeset the maths using the ‘insert equation’ option in the document menu or insert the relevant LaTeX along with the screenshot.

Avoid:

  • Highlighting text to indicate meaning.
  • Using colours, fonts, bold, or italic to indicate headings or other editorial or layout notes.
  • Placing text boxes or a coloured background around pieces of content.
  • Indenting text (except when the bullet style does it for you).
  • Leaving unresolved tracked changes, suggestions, or comments in the document being provided for digitization, unless they’re intended for the copy-editor. These will be lost.
  • Leaving unresolved comments in the body text. It will be difficult to identify and resolve or remove these within the digitized content if they are not marked up. Rather use notes in square brackets to tag these comments for resolving later on.

Tagging features

For most features, you’ll need to use a system of tags (markups or layout instructions) to indicate where features begin and end within the content you create. Tags will include the feature name within square brackets at the start and end of the relevant piece of content.

For example, when you want to indicate that a piece of content should be formatted as an exercise, you would add the following tags before and after the exercise content:

[exercise] ← this tag indicates the beginning of the exercise content

Analyse the graph in Figure 1.1. and answer the following questions:

  1. Describe the relationship …
  2. Explain why …

[end exercise] ← this tag indicates the end of the exercise

See the feature set section for a list of features and the tags or formatting required for each one.

Submitting your work

Make sure that your work is ready for digitization by running through this pre-production checklist:

Pre-digitization checklist

  • The content follows the guidelines set out within this document.
  • The content follows the house style as well as any additional stylesheets for your language (for example, Spanish).
  • Each feature has been tagged or formatted as indicated in the feature set section of this document.
  • The destination for internal links or cross-references is indicated. For example: the unit, section, subsection, or feature (figure, box, exercise, and so forth) is clear.
  • Unless otherwise agreed with CORE and EBW, there are no features included which do not already exist for CORE publications (in other words, all intended features have been selected from the list within the feature set section), and all features included are intended to display and function as the existing features in the prototype unit do.
  • All headings have been formatted using the relevant heading level and are in sentence case.
  • Figures have been numbered sequentially with the unit and figure number, and they include captions and sources where relevant.
  • When figures are adapted from an existing CORE ebook, provide EBW with the original figure number and project (for example, Economy, Society, and Public Policy Figure 3.1) and a clear description of what must be altered in the new version. In larger projects, this information is often best maintained in a dedicated spreadsheet.
  • Each defined term in bold is listed within a glossary sheet (template here) and on that sheet, they start with a lowercase letter unless they’re proper nouns. Check the spreadsheet first to ensure that the term has not already been supplied. This will avoid duplicates.
  • Only text that should be displayed as a table is in a tabular format (in other words, other features, such as exercises or figures, have not been placed inside of tables or boxes).
  • All tracked changes, suggestions and comments have been resolved.
  • All text that should be published is included in the document, and, likewise, any text you do not want to publish is excluded from the document. Comments regarding any content issues which cannot be resolved prior to digitization are indicated with a [QUERY] note inside square brackets.
  • The text has undergone the relevant editorial checks from all parties (for example, reduced usage of inaccessible phrases and language appropriate for multi-format publishing is used for links).