Intranet style guide
A Manual for Document Authors
Revised Feb 2018
Scope and purpose
Timeframes
Content
New information
Style considerations
Series of documents
Ongoing responsibilities of authors
Application development
Contact us
Appendix A: Table of Responsibility
Appendix B: Intranet thesaurus
Scope and purpose
The Court's Intranet aims to provide al internal documents which are useful to a number of staff
members in one convenient location. The Intranet is capable of searching either the ful text of the
document or searching within various fields, such as author, title, subject, etc.
Documents can be loaded in a variety of formats. HTML is the preferred method of publication, as it
displays faster and is easier to read on screen than other formats. For this reason, documents submitted
for publication are normally converted to HTML prior to loading on the Intranet.
The success of the ful text HTML conversion relies to a large extent upon the level of consistency of
style in the original document. The more a document adheres to these guidelines, the quicker the
publishing turn-around time.
This document aims to provide authors and editors with information about how to construct a
consistently styled document suitable for publication on the Intranet.
It also contains the Library's policy in regards to publication turn-around, review of documents, and
development of web applications.
Timeframes
Documents submitted for publication will be published within 3 days of the document being received
at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Please note: most documents will be published sooner than 3
days, but please allow this time in case of staff shortages.
Urgent requests for publication will be accepted if the subject of the email is marked "URGENT" or if a
phone-call is made to the Intranet team. This is subject to the availability of staff and cannot be
guaranteed.
Content
Authors or persons responsible for new information should take into account that:
Documents will generally not be duplicated from the Courts' Internet site.
If material is available off-site, general y links to it will be preferred rather than duplicating the
information on the Intranet.
All material, when drafted into web pages prior to mounting on the Intranet by the Intranet
administrator, is manually proofed by another officer.
New information
Authors or persons responsible for new information should:
suggest a location in the Intranet at which the new information might appear*;
supply the new information to the Intranet Administrator in Word (DOC), Excel (XLS) or
Powerpoint (PPT). PDF is suitable in some cases where specific formatting is required eg.
brochures;
ensure that the document complies with the style considerations listed below.
* The Intranet team cannot always provide the location suggested by authors. The final location will
depend on a number of factors including the estimated frequency of use.
Style considerations
Information for inclusion in the Intranet should be consistent in style.
Authors or persons responsible should note that because many documents are not originally authored
for the Intranet, they may have to be edited appropriately according to the guidelines below in order to
be of a consistent style and be capable of easy conversion to HTML.
Generally, follow the principles espoused in the Style Manual for Authors Editors and Printers. A copy of
this is available in Registry Libraries.
Punctuation and spelling generally
Use standard conventions such as:
"Court" when referring to the Federal Court;
"court" when referring to a court other than the Federal Court;
"judge" rather than "Judge" when referring to any judge, except when referring to a particular
judge;
italics when citing primary legislation, eg
Federal Court of Australia Act 1976;
normal font when citing subordinate legislation eg Federal Court Rules;
"judgment" when referring to court decisions;
"judgement" in any other case;
"registry" rather than "Registry" except when referring to a particular registry;
Generally ensure that words in which the first letter is capitalised or in lower case are
consistently rendered throughout the document and that any word is spelt consistently
throughout the document.
Punctuate dot points only if they are ful y self contained sentences (upper case to begin and full stop at
the end).
Do not rely on the spell check feature of your word processor. Ensure that the document is manually
proofed, ideally by an officer other than the author. Spel ing should be checked in an approved
Australian dictionary.
Page orientation
Avoid the landscape function in Word and Excel unless absolutely necessary.
Heading levels and styles
Paragraph or section headings should be styled using the appropriate paragraph format eg. Heading 1,
Heading 2 etc. Heading levels should cascade correctly. eg Heading 1 is followed by Heading 2, Heading
2 is followed by Heading 3 etc.
Section or paragraph headings should be in lower case, except for the first letter of the first word and
proper nouns. Full stops should not be used after any heading.
Paragraph formatting
Simple paragraph formatting is acceptable within paragraphs eg. bold, italic, etc.
Avoid the use of underlining unless the underlining denotes a hypertext link.
Do not use font sizing. Use one of the options in the "style" dropdown box instead. If using bullet points,
use only the standard circular shaped bullets.
Avoid using tabs and the space bar to lay out paragraphs; instead use the table options provided in the
application. Avoid the use of tabs inside tables.
Page formatting
Avoid using forced page breaks or line breaks. Avoid inserting page numbers, headers or footers.
Replace internal references to page numbers with hyperlinks to relevant points of the document (or
indicate where they should be). Hyperlinks can be applied using the "insert hyperlink" function in Word.
Add hyperlinks (or indicate where they should be) to external references to provide additional
information.
Move footnotes to a single area (usually the end of the document) with hyperlinks from all relevant
points.
Special characters
Do not use "Special Characters" in the "Symbols" function of Word. eg checkboxes, long dashes and
curly quotes.
Images
Images, whether stand alone or embedded in documents should ideally be well under 50kb in size and
be in GIF or JPG format. Image resolution should be no more than 72 dots per inch (dpi). Avoid the use
of BMP format.
Series of documents
Where the same type of document or series of documents, e.g. newsletters, bulletins etc, are issued as
a series or across registries, ensure that the formatting of the series or between registries matches as
closely as possible. It is intended that a template be produced for this purpose.
If a document which is part of a series of documents is supplied to the Intranet administrator which is
formatted differently to others in the series, it will either be amended in line with the others in the series
(with the permission of the author); or returned to the author for amendment.
Ongoing responsibility for accuracy of documents
Content
Generally, the author of the document is responsible for the accuracy and currency of the information
contained in the document.
Several sections of the Intranet are the responsibility of and updated online by other staff:
News Clippings - Melbourne Registry Library
Telephone Book - Details updated by IT Service Desk
Visiting Judges - Each District Registry
VIC Registry page - Carol Bradford, Melbourne Library
Currency
To ensure that documents on the Intranet remain current, the Intranet team wil place expiry dates on
all documents. At the expiry date, the document's author will be emailed, with a request to review the
document.
Application development
A number of web applications have been developed by the Federal Court web team, including:
NSW Online Courtroom Booking System
National Court Framework - NPA Al ocation
Visiting Judges tool (
decommissioned 2024)
Any web applications developed by the web team are for the benefit of the Federal Court as a whole. All
Registries are welcome to use the applications. The team has limited resources to put into the
development and maintenance of such services. It is therefore useful to consider the needs/level of
interest by consulting all Registries as services are scoped to reduce the development and support time
required.
Contact us
The Intranet and Web Updates Team is located in the Communications section of Corporate Services.
Ph. (02) 9230 8585/8542
Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Appendix A: Table of Responsibility
Revised 2018
Page
Name
Notes
Contracts & tendering
Contracts Manager
Court calendar
Intranet-webupates team
Court reporting and transcript Contracts Manager
ECF
Business Analyst, DCP
eNewsletter
National Communications
Manager
Finance
Finance section
Forms
Intranet-web.upates team
Human Resources
HR
Image Gallery
Records Manager
Information Management
Records Manager
International Programs
International Programs unit
Helen Burrows
Information Technology box IT Service Desk Manager
Information Technology box - IT Service Desk Manager ;
IT Tips
Intranet-webupdates team
Job vacancies
HR
Judges' Biographies & photos Court Services Coordinator
Judges' secure area
Intranet-webupdates team
Judges' Welcome & Farewells Court Services Coordinator
Judges' Committees
Executive Assistant to the
Registrar
Judges' Papers
Chambers staff
Judgments
Judgments & Database Officer
Library box
Library & Information Services
Migration Appeals Database [under review ]
National Court Framework
NOR
National Training Program
HR Training
News clippings
VIC Library
Organisational reports
Intranet-webupdates team
Phonebook
Intranet-webupates team
Practice/Practice News
[under review ]
[was Deputy
Registrar]
Property and procurement
Property & Procurement
section
Records Management &
Records Manager
Archives
Registrar's Memoranda
Intranet-webupates team
Registry Court Services:
District Registries
VIC: Carol Bradford
Registry home pages
Risk management
Risk Manager
Quick Links
Intranet-webupates team
Seminars & Events
Melissa Charles;
Registries
Travel
Finance/Intranet-webupates
team
Visiting Judges
District Registries
VIC: Carol Bradford
Document Outline
