14 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 headings and navigation text.
b.The plain text introductions for an article, section or subsection have a full stop added if they do not end with other punctuation.
c.Lists can be set to add a full stop to all items or only the last.
d.Full stops are added at the end of standalone rich-text elements like paragraphs and list items when their page is viewed, unless they are a table cell or they already end with other punctuation, even if that is in a quote or subquote.

When inserting text into table cells, many people only put a full stop at the end of some of them. To maintain consistency, Smallsite Design does not add a full stop during rendering of cells.

Not at end of rich-text

In general, avoid ending rich-text elements with full stops, and they will be appended as required when their page is viewed. This also makes them easier to use in substitutions without having to check whether they need to be edited afterward.

While sentences ending in one of !? and their non-Latin equivalents should obviously preclude adding a full stop, many other punctuation characters, including ;)}]/|@#&*>$, will also preclude automatically adding a full stop, even though they are rarely used that way. If they are used at the end, a full stop may need to be manually added, perhaps in its own text element.