Standard content types

Publications

When to use this content type

Use publications for publishing attachments like:

standalone government documents – they are date-stamped and usually not updated once published
white papers, strategy documents and reports

Do not create a publication for:

meeting minutes, agendas or other meeting papers – these should be attached directly to a group page or governance corporate information page
videos – these should be embedded directly in the content they relate to
guidance that is not in an attachment – use the detailed guidance content type instead

Publication pages should not include multiple documents, unless they are:

versions of the same document, such as a PDF and a HTML attachment or an interim report and a final report
chapters of one document
forms and guidance about filling in those forms
policy papers and impact assessments of those policies

Otherwise, publish the documents separately and use a document collection to group them together.

To create or update this content type, you’ll need a Signon account with access to Whitehall Publisher.

Choose the right type of publication

There are different types of publications. Make sure you choose the right type, because:

if your content is in the wrong content type, users will not be able to find it
the content type can affect how and where the content appears in search and navigation
it could wrongly go into history mode

Content type	What to use it for	What not to use it for
Corporate report	Publications about your organisation as a corporate entity. This includes accounts, annual reports, business plans, performance and efficiency reviews and structural reform plans.	Publications about what your organisation does, like strategy documents. Use the policy paper type instead.
Correspondence	Correspondence created by your organisation or ministers. This includes announcements, letters, responses and statements. It also includes bulletins, circulars, e-bulletins and newsletters.	Formal decision letters from tribunals, regulators or adjudicators. Use the decision type instead.
Decision	Formal decisions made by tribunals, regulators or adjudicators that need to be published for legal reasons or because they relate to significant local or national issues.	Responses to consultations and calls for evidence. Use the consultation type or call for evidence type instead. Also, press announcements about the decision. Use the news article type instead.
Form	Forms or pro forma documents that need to be completed by the user. The page can also include guidance on how to fill in the form.	Anything that is not a form or guidance about filling in a form.
Freedom of information (FOI) release	Response to FOI requests.	Anything that is not a response to an FOI request.
Guidance	Non-statutory guidance publications like handbooks or other documents that offer advice. Also, guidance material that has been produced as a standalone hard copy document rather than a web original document.	Statutory guidance. Use the statutory guidance type instead. Guidance about completing a form. Attach it to the same publication as the form itself.
Impact assessment	Documents that assess the impact of new initiatives or changes to legislation. This includes impact assessments, equality impact assessments and equality impact analyses.	Impact assessments related to policy papers already published on GOV.UK. Attach it to the same publication as the policy paper.
Independent report	Reports commissioned by the government but written by non-government organisations. This includes independent enquiries, investigations and reviews.	Reports written by the government. Use the policy paper type or research and analysis type instead.
International treaty	Treaties and memoranda of understanding between the UK and other nations.	Anything that is not an international treaty or memoranda of understanding.
Map	Drawn maps and geographical data.	Anything that is not a map or geographical data.
Notice	Permit and licence applications that have to be published temporarily in a public space so users can view, comment or lodge an objection.	Anything that is not a permit or licence application.
Policy paper	Publications that explain the government’s position on something. This includes action plans, implementation plans, operational plans, strategies and white papers. The page can also include any related impact assessments.	Publications that include instructions about how to carry out a task. Use the guidance type instead.
Promotional material	Fact sheets, leaflets, marketing collateral and posters.	Letters or other correspondence. Use the correspondence type instead. Also, press releases. Use the news article type instead.
Regulation	Regulations imposed by independent regulatory authorities, like Ofsted or the Military Aviation Authority.	Statutory guidance describing requirements that are mandatory by law. Use the statutory guidance type instead. Also, non-statutory guidance like handbooks and other documents that offer advice. Use the guidance type instead.
Research and analysis	Analyses, evaluations, research reports and surveys. They can be conducted by government, commissioned by government or independent of government.	Responses to consultations and calls for evidence. Use the consultation type or call for evidence type instead.
Standard	Requirements, specifications, guidelines or patterns that can be consistently applied to products, processes and services within government.	Any standards that are not about products, processes or services within government.
Statutory guidance	Guidance that relevant users must follow.	Non-statutory guidance. Use the guidance type instead.
Transparency data	Data that organisations are routinely required to make available to the public. This includes departmental spending and ministerial expenses.	Responses to FOI requests. Use the FOI release type instead. Also, information that is not going to be published on a regular and ongoing basis. Use the statistical data set type instead.

Create a draft

If you’re creating a new publication

Go to Whitehall Publisher.
Select the ‘New document’ tab.
Select ‘Publication’ and then select the ‘Next’ button.
Select the content type from the dropdown under ‘Publication type (required)’.
Add the title and summary. Add a description of the publication to the body.
Tick the UK nations where the content applies under ‘Excluded nations (required)’. If your content does not apply to a nation, you can optionally provide a link to alternative content for users in that nation.
Select ‘Limit access’ under ‘Settings’ if your draft is sensitive. This means only users from organisations tagged to the content can see it before it’s published. It will not be copied across to Integration.
Select the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.

Read the tone of voice guidance and formatting guidance for help with writing the title, summary and body.

After saving the page, you can add attachments and images.

If you’re publishing transparency data, check if there’s relevant ‘How to publish’ guidance with template titles, summaries and bodies that you must use.

If you’re updating an existing publication

Go to Whitehall Publisher.
Select the ‘Documents’ tab.
Search for the publication you want to edit, and select the ‘View’ link next to it. This will take you to the edition summary page. If you only want to update the topic tags and nothing else, select ‘Change tags’ under ‘Topic taxonomy tags’. Otherwise, keep following these steps.
Select the ‘Create new edition’ button. If a new edition has already been created, select the ‘Go to draft’ link. You can then select ‘Edit draft’ or, if you do not want to use this draft, select ‘Delete draft’ and then select ‘Create new edition’.
Do not change anything under the ‘Political’ heading. This is related to history mode and it will only need to be changed if your organisation is asked to take part in an audit of content before a general election.
Make any changes to the title, summary or body as needed. Read the tone of voice guidance and formatting guidance for help.
Change the options under ‘Excluded nations (required)’ if needed.
Select ‘Limit access’ under ‘Settings’ if your draft is sensitive. This means only users from organisations tagged to the content can see it before it’s published. It will not be copied across to Integration.
Decide whether you need to write public change notes. Go to the bottom of the page and select the relevant option under ‘Do users have to know the content has changed?’, and add your change notes if needed (you can edit them again before you publish the draft).
Select the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.

You can now edit the attachments and images.

If you select ‘Create new edition’ and you get a message telling you that the ‘document is in history mode’, you cannot update it without help from the Government Digital Service (GDS). See the guidance on removing history mode for more details.

Add or edit attachments

The publication itself should be added as an attachment.

Make sure you’ve correctly formatted the attachment before you upload it.

Select the ‘Attachments’ tab at the top of the page. You can add, edit or delete attachments from here, and change the order they appear on the page.

Your attachments can either be:

file attachments
HTML attachments
external attachments, if the publication is not on GOV.UK

You can quickly overwrite previous versions of file attachments if you upload new files with the same file names as your old ones.

When you add attachments:

use the official title of the publication
for file attachments, do not tick ‘Attachment is accessible’ – this will let users see a box with information about requesting the attachment in an accessible format, like audio or Braille

Fill in more fields if you’re attaching official documents

There are extra fields you need to fill in if your publication is an ‘official document’. These are publications that are ‘laid before’ (presented to) Parliament, like certain annual reports and accounts.

If they’re added correctly, they will show up on the official documents search tool.

The National Archives explains the different types of official documents, which they call ‘parliamentary papers’.

For any official document uploaded as a PDF, add ‘(print-ready PDF)’ at the end of the title.

If it’s a command paper, fill in these fields:

‘ISBN’
‘Unique reference’ – the departmental unique reference number (URN), if the document has been given one
‘Command paper number’ – use the number found on the title page of the document (if there’s no number, tick the box labelled ‘Unnumbered’)

If it’s a House of Commons paper, fill in these fields:

‘ISBN’
‘Unique reference’ – the departmental unique reference number (URN), if the document has been given one
‘House of Commons paper number’ – use the number found on the title page of the document, but do not include ‘HC’ as this will be added automatically
‘Parliamentary session’ – if you’re not sure which session it is, you can check the Parliamentary session calendar on the UK Parliament website

If it’s an unnumbered act paper, fill in these fields:

‘ISBN’
‘Unique reference’ – the departmental unique reference number (URN), if the document has been given one
‘House of Commons paper number’ – leave the field blank and tick the box labelled ‘Unnumbered act paper’

Add or remove images

Make sure you’ve correctly formatted the images before you add them.

Select the ‘Images’ tab at the top of the page. You can upload images here. Each image will need a different file name.

Once you upload an image, you’ll be given a ‘Markdown code’. You can copy and paste that into the body or HTML attachments and the image will appear there.

If you want to remove an image, you can remove its code from the body or HTML attachments. You can then upload a new version of the image and use its code instead.

Add or remove contact details

You can add contact details using your organisation’s contact directory. That means if the details in the directory are updated, they’ll automatically update in your content too.

Your organisation’s most used contact details should be in the contact directory. Find out how to create or update contacts.

To add a contact from a directory:

Go to ‘More’ at the top of Whitehall Publisher.
Select ‘Organisations’ and find the organisation that owns the contact. Select ‘View’ next to their name.
Go to the ‘Contacts’ tab and copy the relevant ‘Markdown code’.
Paste the code into your document.

You can remove the contact details by deleting the code.

If you do not want to use the contact directory, use the formatting guidance to add contact details.

Change the ‘first published date’

You can change the first published date if the same content was available on another webpage before, like on another GOV.UK page you’re unpublishing or a campaign site you’re closing.

Under ‘First published date’, tick the ‘This document has previously been published on another website’ box. Select the new date.

The new date will show when you publish the draft.

Add or remove tags to organisations, people and events

You can tag your content under the ‘Associations’ heading. You do this by adding or removing associations.

These associations include:

ministers – use this if a government minister has had direct involvement with the content, like if they wrote a foreword
topical events – use this if you want the content to appear on a topical event page
world locations – use this if you work for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and you want the content to appear on a world location news page
lead and supporting organisations – your own organisation will be set as a lead organisation as default, but you can change that or add any other organisations if they’re responsible for the content
statistical data sets – use this if the publication is associated with a statistical data set

If you’re publishing transparency data, check if there’s relevant ‘How to publish’ guidance which includes the associations you need to use.

Update settings of the draft

Under the ‘Settings’ heading, you can:

change the ‘Email address for ordering attachment files in an accessible format’
select ‘Schedule publication’, if you want the draft published at a certain time and date
select ‘Review date’, if you want to get an email asking you to check the content at a later date after you’ve published it

Add or remove topic tags

You need to tag your draft to at least one topic page before you can publish it.

Your content will appear on the tagged topic pages when:

the draft is published, if it’s new content
you save the new tagged topic pages, if you’re updating existing content

See the ‘Education, training and skills’ topic page for an example of what these topic pages look like.

To add tags:

Select ‘Save and go to document summary’ on your current draft.
Under the ‘Topic taxonomy tags’ heading, select ‘Add tags’ or ‘Change tags’.
Tick the boxes next to each topic that applies. The arrows next to each topic will expand the topic out, showing all sub-topics in that topic ‘tree’.
Select ‘Save’.

To remove tags, select ‘Remove topic’ next to the one you want to remove and then select ‘Save’.

Choose topic tags:

based only on what the content is about
from anywhere in the topic ‘tree’, not just the areas that your organisation uses the most

Try to choose the most specific topics you can.

You can tag your content to as many topic pages as are relevant. There’s no limit.

Add or edit translations

Add a new translation

Read the guidance about deciding whether to add a translation.

If you do want to add a translation:

Select ‘Save and go to document summary’ on your current draft.
Under the ‘Translations’ heading, select ‘Add translation’.
Add the translated title, summary and body.
Select ‘Save’.
Under the ‘Attachments’ headings, select ‘Modify attachments’.
Edit any existing attachments and change the ‘Display language’ to English.
Add translated attachments and select the relevant translation under ‘Display language’.
Select ‘Save and go to document summary’ on the ‘Document’ tab.
Check the translations are working by selecting ‘Preview translated pages’ under the ‘Preview’ heading.

If you’re adding a translation for a language that is written from right to left, there’s a different way to format links.

Edit an existing translation

If you want to update the title, summary or body of a translation:

Select ‘Save and go to document summary’ on your current draft.
Under the ‘Translations’ heading, select ‘Edit’ next to the relevant translation.
Make the changes and select ‘Save’.

If you want to update the attached publication:

Go to the ‘Attachments’ tab at the top of the draft of the English version.
Select ‘Edit attachment’ under the relevant attachment.

Update the URL

URLs are automatically created from the page title when you first publish the content. You might want to update the URL if there’s a spelling mistake or if it no longer reflects the content.

If the content has never been published before

You can update the draft title and the URL will change.

If the content has been published already

You can:

Create a new piece of content with the desired title and URL.
Copy over the current content to this new draft.
Publish the new draft.
Unpublish the page with the incorrect URL. When you unpublish it, you’ll be able to set up a redirect to the new page.

The change notes history will be lost if you do this. If you need to keep that history, contact the Government Digital Service (GDS) and ask them to change the URL instead.

Publish the draft

Find out how to send the draft for review.

If you need to publish it urgently without a review, find out when you can publish your own draft.

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