Short version: Scanned/OCRed or rekeyed transcripts of Checkpoint are welcome in most standard formats: Word, WordPerfect, Rich Text Format, or plain and simple HTML. Within a paragraph, underlined text should be rendered in italics – but please put underlined section headings (e.g. FANZINES RECEIVED) into boldface. Other special cases are discussed below. Send the result as an e-mail attachment to Dave Langford.
Plain ANSI or ASCII text. If reduced to this format, please mark underlined or italicized passages with underscores _like this_, and leave a one-line space between paragraphs.
Tabs. If rekeying, don't bother – a hard return ending the previous paragraph is sufficient indication of a new one. If using scan/OCR, don't bother to take out tabs; they'll be ignored in conversion to HTML.
Pagebreaks. Please don't mark pagebreaks specially or include the page numbers. When a paragraph crosses a pagebreak, just keep the text continuous.
Indentation following headlines. Peter Roberts often left a carefully indented space under a headline, like this:
SHOCK HORROR HEADLINE! Text text text text text [Return]
text text text text text [Return]
text text text text text text text text text ...
This is monstrously difficult to reproduce in HTML: please ignore the fancy formatting. The headline should be directly followed by the rest of the paragraph, without internal Returns or extra spaces. Otherwise the drudge Langford will have to take out the offending Returns before HTML conversion, swearing to himself all the while.
Hanging indents. Lists of fanzines occasionally appear like this:
Riverside Quarterly 5/1 (printed:79pp, ¼o). Leland Sapiro, Box 40, Univ. Station, Regina, Canada. 4/$2. Sf, fiction – Blackbeard, Warner, etc.
Wadezine 8 (duplicated:26pp.fscp). Audrey Walton, 25 Yewdale Crescent, Coventry, CV2 2FF, Warks. Free. General & verse.
Psywar 4 (duplicated; 10pp.A4). Keith Walker, Psychiatric Training School, Burnley, Lancs. 10p. Occult.
The archive website uses a style sheet to get this effect. As with the indented headlines above, please don't try to reproduce it by sprinkling returns and spaces through the text. Just add a note in square brackets at the head of these sections: [This list uses hanging indents], or some such. If technically savvy, see the note on style sheet classes below.
Multiple columns. Some Checkpoint lists – e.g. of awards – are typed in two or three columns. If it seems important enough, the archive reproduces this layout with HTML tables. On the whole, this formatting is easier if the list is typed as one long column with notes like this: [Two columns:] and [First column ends here] and [Two-column text ends].
Fancy page dividers. For the sake of simplicity and sanity, horizontal rules are used throughout the archive, like this:
If you're rekeying, a short indicator like ========== is plenty. If using scan/OCR, there's no need to clean up every error in Checkpoint's typographic page dividers (e.g. :o:o:o:o:o: ...). They will generally become plain horizontal rules anyway, although occasional attempts are made to reproduce dotted lines as below:
Artwork. Scans will generally be supplied and inserted by the management. If you're equipped to make a good clean scan of included headers or cartoons, black-and-white GIF images sent as separate attachments (i.e. not embedded in a Word document) are always welcome!
Style sheet classes. [Feel free to skip this technical stuff.] If you plan to send actual HTML and know about, or are able to insert, CLASS specifications in paragraphs ... a few are defined in the site's style sheet. Hanging indents, as mentioned above, can be specified with CLASS="hi" in relevant paragraphs, and tab indents with CLASS="tab". For a dotted page divider as above, use a blank paragraph with CLASS="dot". Like this:
<p class="hi">text text text text</p> <p class="tab">text text text text</p> <p class="dot"></p>
Other queries. The general rule is "keep it simple". If in doubt, ask Dave Langford.