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Manuals

Manuals are a browsable format that are generally created for specialist users who are familiar with a topic.

They also have features which make them suited to long or complex legal documents with named or numbered chapters or clauses. They can be used instead of a lengthy PDF.

Manuals have:

  • at least 2 layers of navigation
  • chapters with plain English summaries that appear in search results
  • the option to create and link to legislative lists (named clauses and sub-clauses)
  • a contents page listing the sections (or chapters) of the manual
  • section pages listing all sub-sections - these can be ‘opened’ individually or all at once
  • change notes for recording updates
  • the ability to add footnotes

Use them for:

  • content that requires at least 2 levels of hierarchy (meaning it is broken down into sections and sub-sections)
  • complex content which includes named chapters, clauses or sub-sections that are referenced regularly by the intended audience (for example legislative documents and regulations)
  • content that is too long to be easily readable in a publication or detailed guide
  • content users think of as a single body or document
  • legal or guidance documents which need to be browsable
  • content that has a valid user need

Do not use them for:

  • PDFs or documents that are published elsewhere on GOV.UK
  • internal guidance, unless there’s a legal requirement to do so (for example HMRC manuals)

View a good example of a manual.

Get approval to create a new manual

Your GOV.UK lead or a managing editor needs to ask the Government Digital Service (GDS) for approval to create a manual.

Their request for a new manual must show:

  • the content has clear user needs
  • what the source content is
  • what else is covered on GOV.UK on the topic

Get access to Manuals Publisher

You’ll need access to Manuals Publisher to create or update manuals.

GDS will usually give publishers in your organisation access when you get approval to create your first manual.

If you do not have access, you need to either:

  • ask one of organisation admins to give you access to Manuals Publisher
  • if you’re the only organisation admin, use the accounts form to ask for access to Manuals Publisher

You’ll also need to ask for the ‘editor’ permission to publish your draft, or find someone in your organisation with that permission.

Create a draft

Read the tone of voice guidance and formatting guidance for help with writing the content.

If you’re creating a new manual

If you have approval from GDS, you can get started:

  1. Go to Manuals Publisher.
  2. Select ‘Create new manual’.
  3. Add a title for the manual and a summary of its contents. You can add more text in the ‘Body’ section if you want to add a more detailed description.
  4. You can select whether the manual has been published before on another website, and give the date that any previous version was published on.
  5. Select ‘Save as draft’.
  6. Select ‘Add’ next to the ‘Sections’ heading for each section you want to add.
  7. When you’re happy with each section, select ‘Save as draft’. You can then keep adding sections to the guide until you’re done.
  8. You can reorder the sections if you select ‘Reorder’ next to the ‘Sections’ heading.

If you’re updating an existing manual

  1. Go to Manuals Publisher.
  2. Select ‘View’ next to the manual you want to update.
  3. If you want to update the title, summary or body of the main page of the manual, select ‘Edit’ next to the ‘Front page’ heading.
  4. If you want to update specific sections, go to the ‘Sections’ area, select ‘View’ next to the relevant section and then ‘Edit section’.
  5. Each time you update a section, decide whether you need to write change notes. If you do, select ‘Major change’ and add your change notes.
  6. You can reorder the sections if you select ‘Reorder’ next to the ‘Sections’ heading.

Add or remove accordions

Each H2 heading you add to the body of a section will show up as a collapsible accordion.

You can use H3 and H4 headings to separate out the content within each subsection.

If you do not want any accordions in a section, tick the ‘Remove collapsible content functionality (accordions)’ box.

Add or edit attachments

You can add attachments as ‘inline’ links within the body of each section. You cannot add HTML attachments to this content type.

Read the guidance on formatting attachments before you start.

When the attachment is ready:

  1. Go to edit the section you want to add the attachment in.
  2. Select either ‘Add attachment’ or ‘Edit attachment’ under the ‘Attachments’ heading.
  3. Add a title. Include the file type and size in brackets at the end, like ‘(PDF, 250KB)’.
  4. Choose the file.
  5. Select ‘Save attachment’.
  6. Under the ‘Attachments’ heading, you should see the attachment’s title and a code after ‘Attachment:’. Copy and paste the code into the relevant part of the body.

Images

You cannot add images to this content type.

Publish the draft

  1. Check that your manual is ready to publish by selecting ‘Preview on website (opens in new tab)’ under the ‘Preview’ heading on the document summary page.
  2. You can share the draft with someone else with access to Manuals Publisher, if you want them to review it.
  3. When you’re ready, select ‘Publish’. It’s not possible to schedule the publication of a manual so it will be published immediately.

Tag organisations

Your manual will be automatically tagged to the same organisation as your Signon account.

If you want to change the organisation or tag more organisations, raise a ticket with GDS.

Tag to topic pages

You can only tag the manual to topic pages once the first draft is published.

You’ll need to raise a ticket with GDS and ask them to tag the manual for you.

Unpublish a manual

You cannot withdraw a manual like you can for content made in Whitehall Publisher.

Instead, you can unpublish either specific sections or the entire manual. This means they’ll be completely removed from GOV.UK.

To unpublish sections of a manual:

  1. Select ‘View’ next to a section you want to unpublish.
  2. Select ‘Withdraw section’.
  3. Decide whether you need to write change notes. If you do, select ‘Major change’ and add your change notes.
  4. When you’ve done this for every relevant section, publish the draft.

To unpublish the manual as a whole, raise a ticket with GDS and explain why the manual needs to be unpublished.