User:Beleg Tâl/Essays/Preservation of source formatting

There is often confusion, and sometimes controversy, over what aspects of a work's formatting should be reproduced, and what aspects should not. This guideline should help clarify the matter.

Note: these guidelines are based on the general established conventions on enWS, upon which WS:MOS is based. That being said, individual editors may disagree (sometimes vehemently) with one or several of the points below. Remember, this is an essay, not a policy.

TL;DR

DO reproduce formatting that is intrinsic to the work, i.e. formatting that is deliberately introduced by the author (or editor, etc).

DO NOT reproduce formatting that is intrinsic to the medium, i.e. formatting that is present essentially because "that's how you format books".

DO reproduce: formatting intrinsic to the work

Formatting introduced deliberately by the author (or editor or whoever) as part of the work itself or its presentation, should be always be reproduced as faithfully as possible.

DO reproduce:

• The text itself (duh) and any accompanying images
• Variations in text style such as bold, italics, and small caps
• Variations in text size (larger and smaller)
• Colour
• Text alignment (left/right/center)

DO NOT reproduce: formatting intrinsic to the medium

Formatting that is caused by the physical printing medium should never be reproduced. This is because we are reproducing the text in a different medium, so different rules apply.

Formatting that is present "by default" in the printing medium should also not be reproduced. This may be a confusing point. Essentially: if the formatting is there because that's "how books are formatted", then it shouldn't be reproduced—the transcribed text should be "how web-based texts are formatted" instead.

DO NOT reproduce:

• Do not reproduce formatting introduced by the physical limitations of paper.
  • Line breaks caused by text wrapping at the edge of the page
  • Page breaks caused by text continuing on the next page
• Do not reproduce layouts introduced by the conventions of the medium
  • Do not

DO NOT reproduce (hard-code):

• The default font used in the original text. This includes the "type" of font (serif, sans-serif, blackletter, cursive, etc.) as well as the "features" of the font (stylistic ligatures, old-style numerals, etc.)
• The style of paragraph breaks (indents at the beginning of paragraphs, and spacing between paragraphs).