Formatting

Bold

Do not use bold to emphasize individual words or phrases

❌ The most important issue is the new road tax.

You can put the word or phrase that you want to emphasize at the front of the sentence instead

✔ The new road tax is the most important issue.

You can also use headings and bullet points to emphasize certain words or phrases.

Pasting text into the content management system (CMS)

The CMS will automatically remove all formatting from text that you paste into it, and you should then format the text using only the styles available in the CMS

Email addresses

Write email addresses in full, in lower case and as active links

✔ The council’s email address is info@council.gov.uk.

Do not include any other words in the link text

❌ The council’s email address is info@council.gov.uk.

Image links

Do not use an image as a link, use a text link instead

Italics

Do not use italics

Tables

Do not use tables to lay out text.

Use tables for data that is too detailed or complicated to be described adequately in text, and which lends itself to being presented in rows and columns.

Underline

Do not use underline for emphasis

Web addresses

Don't include ‘https://’ in a web address

✔ Our new website address is sutton.gov.uk.

❌ Our new website address is .

Don’t include the ‘www.’, unless the address won’t work without this prefix when typed into a browser