Publications Office — Interinstitutional style guide

The printed version of the 2011 edition is available in 23 languages (BG, CS, DA, DE, EL, EN, ES, ET, FI, FR, GA, HU, IT, LT, LV, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SK, SL and SV). To order it: details …

News
Foreword
Preface
References (legal basis and mandate)
Introduction
Part One — Official Journal	13
Preamble	15
1. Structure of the Official Journal	21
1.1. General structure	21
1.2. L series	23
1.2.1. Classification of acts	23
1.2.2. Numbering of acts	24
1.2.3. Contents	26
1.3. C series	32
1.3.1. Classification of documents	32
1.3.2. Numbering of documents	33
1.3.3. Contents	34
2. Structure of a legal act	37
2.1. Title	37
2.2. Citations and recitals (preamble)	38
2.3. Articles (enacting terms)	40
2.4. Compulsory character of regulations (concluding formula)	41
2.5. Concluding formulas (place, date and signature)	41
2.6. Annexes	43
2.7. Subdivisions of acts	44
3. Rules on drafting documents	45
3.1. References to the Official Journal	45
3.2. Titles and references to an act	46
3.2.1. Titles	46
3.2.2. Referring to other acts	47
3.2.3. References to subdivisions of an act	51
3.2.4. References to amendments to an act	51
3.3. Amending articles	52
3.4. Order of citation	54
3.4.1. Order of the Treaties	54
3.4.2. Order of publication	55
3.4.3. Countries	55
3.4.4. Languages and multilingual texts	56
3.4.5. Currencies	56
3.5. Lists	56
3.5.1. Listed points — punctuation	56
3.5.2. Listing of acts	56
3.6. Definition of an expression or a word	57
3.7. Agreements and protocols	57
Summary tables	59
Part Two — General publications
4. Document preparation and identifiers
4.1. Authors, authorising departments, Publications Office and printshops
4.1.1. Authors and the Publications Office
4.1.2. Project management at the Publications Office
4.1.3. Proofreading at the Publications Office
4.2. Original documents (manuscripts)
4.2.1. Principle of a production chain
4.2.2. Logical structure of documents
4.2.3. Text preparation
4.2.4. Camera-ready documents
4.3. Publication types
4.3.1. Monographs
4.3.2. Continuing resources
4.3.3. Combined serial publications and monographs
4.4. Identifiers
4.4.1. International standard book number (ISBN)
4.4.2. International standard serial number (ISSN)
4.4.3. Digital object identifier (DOI)
4.4.4. Catalogue number
5. Structure of a publication
5.1. Cover
5.1.1. Components
5.1.2. Use of colour on covers
5.2. Title page
5.3. Verso of the title page
5.3.1. Components
5.3.2. Copyright
5.3.3. Legal notice (disclaimer formula)
5.3.4. Note relating to the type of paper
5.4. Cataloguing data
5.5. Preliminary pages and end-matter
5.5.1. Dedication
5.5.2. Foreword, preface and introduction
5.5.3. Contents
5.5.4. Bibliographies
5.5.5. Index
5.6. Divisions of the text
5.7. Listed points
5.8. Emphasis
5.9. References
5.10. Quotations
5.11. Illustrations
5.12. Tables
Part Three — Conventions common to all languages
6. Typographic instructions and revision of the text
6.1. Reading the manuscript
6.2. Reading electronic manuscripts
6.3. Proof-correction marks
6.4. Word-processor punctuation marks and spacing
6.5. Punctuation in figures
7. Countries, languages, currencies and their abbreviations
7.1. Countries
7.1.1. Designations and abbreviations to use
7.1.2. Country listing order
7.2. Languages
7.2.1. Order of language versions and ISO codes (multilingual texts)
7.2.2. Listing languages in text (unilingual texts)
7.2.3. Indication of languages published
7.2.4. Rules governing the languages in the institutions
7.3. Currencies
7.3.1. The euro and the cent
7.3.2. Order of the currencies and ISO codes
7.3.3. Rules for expressing monetary units
Summary document ‘EU-27, acceding state and candidate countries’
8. Footnotes and their references
8.1. Footnote references
8.2. Order of footnotes
9. Other conventions
9.1. Addresses
9.1.1. Addresses: general principles
9.1.2. Addresses in unilingual documents
9.1.3. Addresses in multilingual documents
9.1.4. Addresses in the Member States: presentation and examples
9.1.5. Addresses in the Member States: specific characteristics
9.2. Electronic addresses
9.3. Telephone numbers
9.4. Citation of works and references to the Official Journal
9.5. Administrative structure of the European Union: official titles and listing order
9.5.1. Institutions and bodies
9.5.2. Interinstitutional services
9.5.3. Decentralised organisations (agencies)
9.5.4. Executive agencies
9.5.5. Euratom agencies and bodies
9.5.6. Other organisations
9.6. Commission directorates-general and services: official titles
Part Four — Publications in English
10. House rules for the preparation of the text
10.1. Punctuation
10.1.1. Full stop
10.1.2. Semicolon
10.1.3. Colon
10.1.4. Parentheses
10.1.5. Square brackets
10.1.6. Quotation marks
10.1.7. Dash
10.1.8. Ellipsis
10.1.9. Solidus
10.1.10. Hyphen
10.1.11. Question mark
10.1.12. Exclamation mark
10.1.13. Apostrophe
10.2. Verbs
10.2.1. Singular or plural
10.2.2. Verb forms
10.3. Spelling
10.3.1. Tricky plurals
10.3.2. Interference effects
10.4. Capitals and lower case
10.5. Numbers, dates and time
10.6. Italics
10.7. Abbreviations, contractions, symbols and acronyms
10.8. Miscellaneous
11. Reference works
Annexes
Annex A1 — Graphics guide to the European emblem
Annex A2 — Emblems
Annex A3 — Abbreviations, symbols and contractions in common use
Annex A4 — Main acronyms and abbreviations
Annex A5 — List of countries, territories and currencies
Annex A6 — Country and territory codes
Annex A7 — Currency codes
Annex A8 — Language codes (European Union)
Annex A9 — Institutions, bodies, interinstitutional services and organisations: multilingual list
Annex A10 — Regions
Annex C — Miscellaneous
Index

Contents