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A white paper is neither fish nor fowl, if you’ve heard that expression.<\/p>\n
A white paper is something between a marketing piece and a scholarly essay.<\/p>\n
It’s not a brochure, so it shouldn’t be as slick and colorful as one.<\/p>\n
But it’s got to be more visually appealing than a report cranked out of Word.<\/p>\n
Think of a page from a magazine like Scientific American<\/em> or Vanity Fair<\/em>, or the front part of an annual report, before they get to the numbers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n That kind of crisp, elegant editorial design is what you want to shoot for.<\/p>\n Most of all, here are five things you must NOT do when you format a white paper.<\/p>\n Stumble into these pitfalls and you’ll make it harder for every reader to plow through your document.<\/p>\n And if no one reads it, kiss goodbye to all the hours and all the money that went into that white paper.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The classic rule of thumb for easy reading is to limit any horizontal line of type to 12 words, or about 60 to 66 characters.<\/p>\n That applies both on-screen and on paper.<\/p>\n Why try to squeeze 100 characters into each line?<\/p>\n Why do some white papers run a horizontal line of type all the way from one side\u00a0of the page to the other?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How readable do you find the example shown above?<\/p>\n Yes, that’s hard for our eyes to scan… and tough for our brains to process.<\/p>\n Format a white paper like this, and for sure you will lose most of your readers.<\/p>\n Why would anyone start a major new section at the very bottom of a page, with only a line or two of text following?<\/p>\n Here’s an example of an awkward page ending…<\/p>\n In this case, the new section is also smack up against a footnote…. which is also crammed up against the footer. Isn’t all that jarring and pointless?<\/p>\n There’s nothing “wrong” with leaving a little white space at the end of a major section. Just start the new section on a new page.<\/p>\n Your readers know how to flip a page, or scroll down the screen. They’ve been doing it since they were two.<\/p>\n See how much better this page looks with some more white space…<\/p>\n That little fix up costs nothing but a few seconds of thought. But it\u00a0gives readers a momentary break, and helps them see\u00a0the structure of the paper.<\/p>\n But a white paper formatted as a wall of grey text won’t engage anyone.<\/p>\n See for yourself… how do you like this page? How likely are you to read it?<\/p>\n Instead, use “text organizers” to break up the wall.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Text organizers are all those little devices like bullets, boxes, shading, sidebars, callouts. These visual breaks can help highlight the key message of each page and provide some welcome eye relief.<\/p>\n Ideally your white paper writer will provide some of these. If not, see what you can come up with.<\/p>\n But don’t go to the other extreme, and make your pages like a pizza box.<\/p>\n Too much color, too many graphics, too many things to take in at once will conspire to turn off your audience.<\/p>\n Here’s an example of just too much on one page.<\/p>\n Instead of supporting the white paper’s argument, all these graphics are just competing for attention.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Select the most powerful and appropriate single graphic for any page and use it. Keep the rest for later, or drop them.<\/p>\n Computer software does a terrible job of hyphenating English. If you let it, it will break words like “sy-stem” and “Or-acle.”<\/p>\n Traditional typographers called for “four-down”; in other words, at least four letters down before any hyphen.<\/p>\n And if you absolutely must even up a paragraph with a hyphen, take a second to do it thoughtfully.<\/p>\n For example, I like to create recognizable root words by inserting optional hyphens manually. It only takes two seconds.<\/p>\n For example, in the word “thankfully” the two obvious places to put a hyphen are “thank-ful” and “thankful-ly.” This simple tactic builds readability, instead of tearing it down with meaningless breaks like “than-kfully.”<\/p>\n And never break your own company or product names with a hyphen. That’s just not right.<\/p>\nDesign no-no #1: Lines too long<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nDesign no-no #2: Awkward page breaks<\/h3>\n
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<\/div>\nDesign no-no #3: Wall of grey<\/h3>\n
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This is the tech manual school of design: Just pour the text into the pages, all 300 of ’em.<\/p>\nDesign no-no #4: Pages too busy<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nDesign no-no #5: Useless hyphens<\/h3>\n