Updates: How to publish on GOV.UK
2021
13 August 2021 published amendments
10 August 2021 published amendments
Added details of how to add translated versions of social media accounts
Added details of how to add translated versions of social media accounts
29 June 2021 published amendments
New section on how to format CSV files for preview and OpenDocument forms before adding them to GOV.UK as attachments.
25 June 2021 published amendments
Updated section slug from guidance/how-to-publish-on-gov-uk/accessible-pdfs to guidance/how-to-publish-on-gov-uk/document-accessibility
17 March 2021 published amendments
Do not use bold text in address Markdown. Use heading Markdown outside the address Markdown instead, if you need to draw attention.
17 February 2021 published amendments
16 February 2021 published amendments
Added a section on how to unpublish statistics announcements as managing editors now have the ability to do this for announcements that were published in error.
2020
10 December 2020 published amendments
Adding attachments: you must publish an accessible version alongside a PDF - either HTML or OpenDocument.
Updated the section 'Add topic tagging' with the process for tagging content.
11 November 2020 published amendments
Removed part about not being able to use markdown in table cells - this is possible.
Removed part about using html in links - not necessary as markdown can be used.
Removed part about using
tags within table cells to put values on different lines as this can cause accessibility issues.
Provided an example of a table in which the right column is aligned.
Moved link to table generator to sit with information on creating a table manually.
Added a more descriptive link text signposting users to information on when to use tables and how to make them accessible.
10 November 2020 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Updated information about the training required to get a GOV.UK publishing account in the 'Request an account' chapter.
5 November 2020 published amendments
Accessibility change to guidance on making videos accessible. More information about closed captions, transcripts and audio descriptions, more examples.
21 September 2020 published amendments
Added heading markdown to table
Changed the title to remove duplicate title issue with new page on publishing accessible documents
10 September 2020 published amendments
28 August 2020 published amendments
Added instructions about using the 'post-transition call-out box' and the 'transition period' topic tag where appropriate.
24 August 2020 published amendments
Alt text guidance changed: write image descriptions in the body text and leave the 'Alt text' field blank.
20 August 2020 published amendments
Publishing accessible documents
Guidance updated to point to newly published Whitehall guidance on publishing accessible documents.
29 July 2020 published amendments
Added guidance on how to change the number of management people photos that appear on organisation pages.
19 May 2020 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Removed 'policies' from the list of fields in the export of filtered documents as this no longer exists in Whitehall publisher.
Reviewing and publishing content
Removed mentions of 'policies' and 'policy areas' from the 2i checklist as these features in Whitehall publisher no longer exist.
Removed guidance about adding 'our policies' to organisation pages and selecting 'policy areas' or 'detailed guide categories' under 'Associations' as these are no longer available in Whitehall publisher.
Removed mentions of 'policies' when creating a topical event as this feature no longer exists in Whitehall publisher.
5 March 2020 published amendments
Updated history mode guidance to show which document formats will show history mode when they are tagged to a minister.
4 March 2020 published amendments
Removed references to order URL and price. These fields have been removed from Whitehall publisher.
27 February 2020 published amendments
18 February 2020 published amendments
Removed references to 'web ISBN'. Web ISBN has been removed from Whitehall publisher as only one ISBN is required.
10 January 2020 published amendments
Updated authorisation needed to create or modify statistics or statistics release announcements.
2019
4 December 2019 published amendments
19 September 2019 published amendments
Publishing accessible documents
Clarified guidance around checking Microsoft Office documents meet accessibility requirements.
Added information about how to close a group.
18 September 2019 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Added information about what happens to attachments when unpublishing and withdrawing content.
17 September 2019 published amendments
The markdown for tables has been updated to improve accessibility - you should now add a hash (‘#’) character after the pipe if the cell is the title of a row, for example |# Row 1 | item 1 | item 2 | item 3
Publishing accessible documents
Updated the guidance on publishing accessible documents, including:
+ updating the guidance on keeping the document simple - for example, by avoiding images containing text, using descriptive link text, not using colour or shape to convey meaning
+ linking to guidance that covers how to structure and tag PDFs more accessibly
+ clarifying that PDF/A is an archiving format - and that saving as PDF/A alone will not make a document more accessible
5 September 2019 published amendments
24 July 2019 published amendments
9 July 2019 published amendments
14 June 2019 published amendments
Added information about when it might be appropriate to use a video and how to make videos more accessible.
2018
31 December 2018 published amendments
From 1 January 2019, Command paper numbers will follow this format: ‘CP’ followed by the number, for example ‘CP 57’
23 November 2018 published amendments
31 October 2018 published amendments
22 October 2018 published amendments
Tables should be saved as images and uploaded to a HTML page. Previous guidance said tables should be added as attachments.
19 October 2018 published amendments
Added guidance about how to correctly format CSV files so they can be previewed on GOV.UK in the 'Adding attachments' section.
12 October 2018 published amendments
Added instructions for adding HTML versions of official documents alongside the PDF versions.
26 September 2018 published amendments
Removed guidance about policies and policy areas because they're about to be retired from GOV.UK.
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Removed guidance about policies because they're about to be retired from GOV.UK.
Removed guidance about policies because they're about to be retired from GOV.UK.
24 September 2018 published amendments
Publishing accessible documents
Guidance re-written to provide more detail on making non-HTML documents meet the new accessibility requirements for public sector websites and apps.
23 August 2018 published amendments
Added information about publishing accessible diagrams, charts and infographics in the 'Images' section.
23 July 2018 published amendments
Added guidance on how to tag content to topics. Also edited guidance on associations to remove confusion around the term 'topic'.
27 June 2018 published amendments
18 June 2018 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Added examples of what to put in the 'Public explanation (this is shown on the live site)' box when withdrawing content in Whitehall publisher.
15 June 2018 published amendments
Added detail about analytics measures for choosing news or service-based homepages; linked to guidance about choosing photos; clarified that it's possible to have no featured content
8 June 2018 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Updated the 'How to unwithdraw content'. Guidance now explains how to unwithdraw content if an update needs to be made to the content item.
22 May 2018 published amendments
Updated introductory sentences for accuracy - PDFs are often bad for accessibility, but they can be made to meet accessibility standards.
6 April 2018 published amendments
Attachments guidance updated to include list of open standard file formats which should be used.
5 April 2018 published amendments
8 March 2018 published amendments
Added new section ‘Documents tagged to the new organisation’ in 'Close an organisation’. This explains when to tag existing documents and publications to a new organisation, how to decide what needs to be tagged and how to request a bulk re-tag.
2017
18 December 2017 published amendments
Under 'Edit an existing (published) document', guidance on change notes has been revised to make it clearer when you should leave a change note.
6 December 2017 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Updated the 'How withdrawing works' section. '[Withdrawn]' is now added automatically to HTML attachments.
1 November 2017 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Added section about managing your organisation's accounts
20 October 2017 published amendments
Added a section under 'Create a collection' which tells publishers that when they withdrawn item, they need to be sure it's not part of a collection. If it is, then they need to unpublish the page.
26 September 2017 published amendments
30 June 2017 published amendments
Added guidance on how (and what) to tag to the new worldwide navigation pages. Also updated the 'world locations' heading, as these pages are now called 'world location news pages'. Added a line explaining what content should go on a worldwide organisation page.
28 June 2017 published amendments
Made it clear that PDFs are bad for accessibility and that content should be created in HTML formats wherever possible. Links have been added to guidance about how to create more accessible PDFs from Word, and the previous instructions have been removed as they were not complete. A link has been added to the Microsoft Office 2016 accessibility checker.
27 April 2017 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Added guidance on how to unpublish pages that mention convictions.
2016
22 August 2016 published amendments
17 June 2016 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Removed line saying managing editors could override history mode.
13 June 2016 published amendments
Markdown guidance for tables: a slight restructure and adding:
* information on right alignment
* examples of markdown and html
9 June 2016 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Updated 'How withdrawing works' to say that withdrawn content does not appear in internal site search results.
20 May 2016 published amendments
21 April 2016 published amendments
31 March 2016 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Updated information on requesting an account and clarified account permissions.
18 March 2016 published amendments
Added guidance about attachment file names in the 'Adding attachments' section.
16 March 2016 published amendments
23 February 2016 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Updated Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher to reflect the change of name of the different publishing environments.
11 February 2016 published amendments
Updated guidance on people on roles to explain when roles should be assigned, what to do if the name or responsibilities of a role changes and when to create interim roles.
3 February 2016 published amendments
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
Corrected who can unsuspend accounts to GDS.
Reviewing and publishing content
Clarified that only editors or managing editors can edit, publish, schedule or reject a submitted draft. Added that you need to tell them when you've submitted a draft.
Updated guidance on how to tag content to topics, policies and document collections.
Specified what content types can have images.
2015
22 September 2015 published amendments
Removed an incorrect version of 'Edit published documents' section and replaced correct text.
16 September 2015 published amendments
3 August 2015 published amendments
Guidance on how to publish statistics updated.
Changed references to 'topics' to 'policy areas' - where 'topics' referred to the old policy groupings.
Instructions on how to create topical event pages added.
7 July 2015 published amendments
Reviewing and publishing content
Document collections added to the list of content types that take 5 minutes for changes to appear after publication on GOV.UK.
You can now mark documents as important to a policy.
You can now feature policies on organisation home pages.
18 June 2015 published amendments
Collections now take history mode if this is turned on manually for each one.
28 May 2015 published amendments
Unpublishing and withdrawing ('archiving')
Updated to explain that unpublished content will return to a 'draft' state that cannot be discarded.
Changes to reflect the new policy format.
14 April 2015 published amendments
25 March 2015 published amendments
11 March 2015 published amendments
16 January 2015 published amendments
2014
24 November 2014 published amendments
'Top tasks' and 'Services and features' replaced with 'Choosing your homepage layout' within 'Organisation pages'.
4 November 2014 published amendments
6 October 2014 published amendments
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Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher
New section added.
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Reviewing and approving content
New section added.
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