10. Full stops
Full stops are a little thing, but there can be some confusion about where they should be placed.
In order to keep consistency, the rules that Smallsite Design applies for full stops are:
- a.In general, final full stops are stripped off all elements.
- b.An inline element with only a full stop is left alone.
- c.The plain text introductions for an article, section or subsection have a full stop added if they don't end with other punctuation.
- d.Lists can be set to add a full stop to all items or only the last.
- e.Full stops are added at the end of rich-text elements when rendered, unless they are a table cell or they already end with other punctuation, even if that is in a quote or subquote.
To force a full stop at the very end of a rich-text or inline rich-text element, append an inline element with only a full stop. This is needed if wanting a quote or subquote with a final full stop, as recommended by some style guides.
When inserting text into table cells, many people only put a full stop at the end of some of them. To maintain consistency, and prevent orphan full stops being the only character on a wrapped-around line in a cell, Smallsite Design doesn't add a full stop during rendering.