official-documents.gov.

uk

Command and House of Commons Papers

PDF Technical Specification

Updated: December 2012

Technical specification update: to ensure PDFs of the papers published on the Official Documents
website meet the requirements for UK Government Websites on accessibility as advised in the Cabinet
Office guidelines ‘Making PDF Files Usable and Accessible’.
Command and House Papers PDF Technical Specification

2
Command and House Papers PDF Technical Specification

Context
The Official Documents website http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/ is provided under
the terms of the Command and Other Papers Contract awarded to TSO by Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office, part of The National Archives. The papers published on the
website are generally Command or House of Commons papers, though occasionally
other papers of note, such as unnumbered Act papers, are included.

Command Papers are Government Papers having their provenance from Ministers of
the Crown which are laid before Parliament as conveying information or decisions which
the Government thinks should be drawn to the attention of one or both Houses.

House of Commons Papers (in this context) are Papers the House of Commons orders
to be printed but are sponsored by a Government Minister or other Public Body.
Examples include Executive Agency/NDPB Annual Reports and Accounts, National
Audit Office ‘value for money’ reports and the reports of major Inquiries that are subject
to a Return to an Address of the House of Commons.

Requirement
A web accessible PDF of your paper needs to be available on the Official Documents
website on the day of publication.
The PDF should be prepared so that users of the website can search for it in a
consistent manner. To ensure this, please follow the technical specifications on page 5.
In addition, the PDF must meet the Cabinet Office (CO) Web standards and guidelines
‘Making PDF files Usable and Accessible’. The guidelines can be accessed at:
http://digitalstandards.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/making-pdf-files-usable-and-accessible/
Please supply TSO with a PDF meeting these requirements ensuring availability on the
Official Documents website on the day of publication. Generally this means the PDF
should be with TSO before the paper’s publication date.
Where it is not possible to supply an accessible PDF, TSO is able to accept a holding
PDF as a temporary measure until the accessible PDF is provided.

For an additional charge, TSO is also able to take on accessibility requirements for
producing web accessible PDFs. Please contact your TSO Key Account Executive
(KAE) if you are likely to require this service.

PDFs published on the Official Documents website must include exactly the same text
as the laid document.

Delivery of PDFs
Individual PDFs should be emailed to the KAE responsible for the production of your
paper.

If the document carries a ‘Restricted’ security marking before publication, email it to

parlypubs@tso.gse.gov.uk, notifying your KAE. If the paper is marked ‘Confidential’ or
above and will remain so before publication, do not use email and contact your KAE to
discuss secure arrangements.

3
Command and House Papers PDF Technical Specification

The subject line of the e-mail should include the document class, paper number and
year/session e.g. Command Paper No. 7781 2009 or House of Commons Paper No.
176 2009-2010.

NB: Indicate in the email subject line if the attachment is a corrective reprint,
correction slip or explanatory memorandum.

Queries
Please address any queries on this requirement to your KAE.

4
Command and House Papers PDF Technical Specification

Technical PDF Specifications

Please follow these specifications and the COI’s guidelines to ensure that your paper is
published correctly on the Official Documents website.

Content Preparation
The PDF should be A4 portrait with one page to view.

If the paper has a cover then this should be added to the body text pages to produce a
composite PDF of the entire publication. This is so that pages i and ii of the cover
appear in front of the body text, and pages iii and iv of the cover appear after the body
text.

Blank pages that have been included in the document to preserve the aesthetics of the
printed product, such as those before Chapters which always commence on a recto
page, should be removed so that web users do not have to browse blank pages.

Metadata and PDFs

The title field in the paper's document properties must contain the title of the publication
and the Command or House Paper number. Please follow these examples:

Command Paper 6904 should be entered as:

Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2005 CM 6904

House of Commons Paper 870 should be entered as:

Eighth Report of the Independent Monitoring Commission HC 870

5
Command and House Papers PDF Technical Specification

PDF Filename
The PDF documents should be saved using this standardised filename protocol:

Document Type Filename Example Comments

Pad to 4 numbers by
Command Paper No.
5355.pdf using a 0 prefix where
5355
necessary
Pad to 4 numbers by
House of Commons
0052.pdf using a 0 prefix where
Paper No. 52
necessary
Use the 13 digit ISBN
Un-numbered Act
9780108508806.pdf that the paper published
paper
with

If the PDF is not web accessible, then the holding PDF should be named using this
standardised filename protocol:

Document Type Filename Example Comments

Pad to 4 numbers by
Command Paper No.
5355_holding.pdf using a 0 prefix where
5355
necessary
Pad to 4 numbers by
House of Commons
0052_holding.pdf using a 0 prefix where
Paper No. 52
necessary