Summary
Guidance for government editors and publishers about how to create and edit documents and organisation pages.
Contents
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Understand how Whitehall publisher works and how you access it.
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Using Markdown to format content on GOV.UK.
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How to create, edit and tag content in Whitehall publisher.
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Information about the workflow in Whitehall publisher, and how to review documents including the '2i' process.
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How and when to remove or retire content from GOV.UK.
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Add an image or video to GOV.UK.
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How to include tables, graphs and bar charts in your pages.
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How to create, edit and add content to your organisation pages.
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How to create people and roles and special instructions for creating ministers.
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Types of groups, creating and editing groups.
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How to add, edit or delete a translated document.
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Creating and editing world location news pages, navigation pages and worldwide organisation pages.
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Create, update and conclude a consultation on GOV.UK.
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Create, update and conclude a call for evidence on GOV.UK.
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Information on how email notifications work in Whitehall publisher.
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How to create and edit statistics announcements and publications.
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Information about accessible formats and where to find guidance about creating accessible content.
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How to create and edit topical event pages.
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How to create and edit manuals.
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How to create and edit licence pages.
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How to create and edit find my nearest pages.
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How to send the Government Digital Service comments and suggestions about this manual.
Update history
2025-02-13 16:35
Organisation pages – Added guidance about including a link to jobs information.
2025-01-16 13:25
Local transaction pages – New section added.
2025-01-13 13:03
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Removed the ‘user_managers’ permission from the list of ‘devolved’ applications.
2024-12-19 15:34
Creating and updating pages – Updated to leave the ‘Attachment is accessible’ box unticked for accessibility.
2024-11-13 09:48
Topical event pages – Updated the ‘Topical event pages’ section to add that it’s now possible to feature 6 documents.
2024-10-29 14:40
Creating and updating pages – Adding the criteria for when history mode can be removed and explaining the alternatives to removing history mode.
2024-10-28 17:16
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Updated ‘Request an account’ section to add new guidance about how to request and complete training to get access to Whitehall Publisher.
2024-10-28 16:11
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Updated ‘Production and Integration environments’ section – Content in Integration will now be overwritten weekly in the early hours of Monday morning with what’s in Production.
2024-10-24 15:40
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Updated references to managing editors being able to manage accounts – only managing editors with organisation admin permissions can do that.
2024-10-03 09:27
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Added ‘Issues with 2-step verification (2SV)’ and updated ‘Set up 2SV’ to provide more guidance on managing 2-step verification for Signon accounts.
2024-09-23 14:06
Statistics – Updated to reflect the name change from ‘national statistics’ to ‘accredited official statistics’.
2024-09-20 12:01
People and roles – Updated to reflect the current process for updating ministerial information.
2024-09-02 11:43
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Updated ‘Manage your organisation’s accounts’ section to add new guidance about managing permissions for ‘devolved’ applications, which now includes the ‘editor’ permission in Whitehall Publisher.
2024-08-14 14:40
Accessible formats – Clarified the legal responsibility of inaccessible content.
2024-08-09 17:29
Images and videos – Added details about which users can see YouTube embeds.
2024-08-07 11:26
Worldwide – Updated guidance on how to publish worldwide content to reflect:1) publishing tool changes2) current departmental processes
2024-08-01 09:38
Unpublishing and withdrawing (‘archiving’) – Updated the guidance to reflect that:The ‘Withdraw or unpublish’ button now sits above the ‘Set review date’ box, not the ‘Check for broken links’ box. Non-HTML attachments are available when a page is unwithdrawn.
2024-07-19 12:08
Find my nearest pages – New ‘Find my nearest pages’ section added.
2024-07-18 10:49
Unpublishing and withdrawing (‘archiving’) – Added guidance on how to republish unpublished content.
2024-07-12 17:41
People and roles – Updated ‘New roles and role changes’ and ‘Create a new minister’ to clarify roles and responsibilities of Number 10, GDS and affected government departments.
2024-07-09 15:12
Creating and updating pages – Updated what content types automatically get history mode. For example, we’ve clarified that some content types only get history mode automatically if associated with a minister when first published, and that document collections and detailed guidance cannot be associated with a minister.
2024-07-01 14:23
Organisation pages – Added details about how to add a ‘What we do’ section to a new organisation page.
2024-06-12 14:41
Creating and updating pages – Updated ‘Content associated with the government of the time (‘history mode’)’ with amended list of content types that can be put into history mode.
2024-05-22 09:39
Creating and updating pages – Added ‘call for evidence’ as a content type which history mode displays on.
2024-04-08 11:16
Consultations – Added information about updating consultations if the government response is delayed.
2024-04-05 14:28
Organisation pages – Updated guidance about featuring content on an organisation page to explain what Whitehall and non-Whitehall content can be featured.
2024-03-20 12:00
People and roles – Added details about how to create translated people and role pages.
2024-02-15 13:13
Manuals – New section added.
2024-01-31 09:56
Creating and updating pages – Updated information about mandatory tags.
2024-01-29 11:56
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Updated guidance about how to request a new account. GOV.UK leads and managing editors can request a new Whitehall Publisher account through GOV.UK Support.
2023-11-30 14:44
Creating and updating pages – Removed references to specialist topic pages from ‘Add associations (tagging) ‘ section.
2023-11-22 11:39
Creating and updating pages – The ‘Crate a collection’ section has been updated to reflect the design and workflow changes.
2023-11-16 14:36
Licence pages – New section added.
2023-08-16 12:40
Email notifications – New section added on email notifications.
2023-08-15 12:17
Images and videos – Updated the ‘Attributing images’ section to reflect the current requirements for attributing images under a Creative Commons licence.
2023-08-08 10:05
Calls for evidence – We’ve added Calls for evidence as a new content type in Whitehall. This guidance is on how to create, update and conclude a call for evidence on GOV.UK.
2023-08-01 10:09
Markdown – Updated the attachments Markdown section. The Markdown syntax has changed and you can now copy and paste the Markdown when you upload an attachment.
2023-07-18 09:32
Creating and updating pages – In the Create a new document section, removed an outdated step which is no longer available in Whitehall. Also added information on adding a review date to content.
2023-05-16 16:32
Worldwide – Alt text is no longer a mandatory field. This has been removed from the instructions.
2023-05-16 16:27
Images and videos – We have introduced a new way of uploading an image in GOV.UK. The following sections have been updated to reflect the changes:content types what will always display a lead imageformatting an imageimage file namesuploading an imagepositioning images on a pageattributing images
2023-04-05 10:44
Markdown – Clarifying the process for adding attachments, linking to sections on a page, using subscript and superscript and adding footnotes.
2023-03-14 11:52
Worldwide – Minor updates
2023-02-02 16:29
Translations – Updated references to the translations section on the edition summary page in the ‘Add a new translation’, ‘Edit a translation’ and ‘Add translated attachments’ sections.
2022-12-22 12:11
Creating and updating pages – Updated ‘Adding attachments’ section. Reordering attachments has moved to a separate page – select ‘reorder attachments’ on the attachments page. Use the up and down buttons to reorder attachments, or select and hold on an attachment to reorder using drag and drop.
2022-11-02 11:32
Creating and updating pages – Added information on not using macros to ‘Formatting attachments’
2022-10-28 12:21
Unpublishing and withdrawing (‘archiving’) – Restructuring content based on user feedback. Adding information on how to fix a mistake in a published URL.
2022-10-27 11:01
Images and videos – Updated ‘Image’ section with guidance on how ‘Save’ works in Whitehall Publisher. ‘Save’ now keeps you on the edit document page, rather than taking you to the edition summary page.
2022-10-06 15:28
Topical event pages – Removed out of date information from the ‘Create topical event details’ section about adding topics to topical event details.
2022-09-26 12:06
Markdown – Added guidance on how to use Markdown for different bar chart styles, and information about colours and accessibility in bar charts.
2022-09-01 12:28
Introduction and access to Whitehall publisher – Added information to the ‘Manage your organisation’s accounts’ and ‘Signing in to Whitehall publisher’ sections about about how to set up and manage 2-step verification. Added a new section called ‘Reset your 2-step verification’.
2022-08-30 13:20
Consultations – Updated ‘Create and start a consultation’ section with guidance on how ‘Save’ and ‘Save and continue’ works in Whitehall Publisher. ‘Save’ will now take you to the edition summary page, rather than returning you to the edit document page.
2022-08-24 11:05
Images and videos – Guidance on creating an SVG file has been added to the Images section.
2022-08-18 08:55
Unpublishing and withdrawing (‘archiving’) – Added guidance in ‘How withdrawing works’ section under ‘How to unwithdraw content’ about how and when to reuse previous withdrawal dates and explanations in Whitehall Publisher.
2022-07-14 10:18
Creating and updating pages – Updated guidance in the ‘preview content’ section. You can now preview CSV files when using a sharable document preview link.
2022-07-12 14:11
Creating and updating pages – Added information to the ‘create a new document’ section (point 7) about notifications for documents previously published on another website.
2022-07-05 13:05
Creating and updating pages – Updated guidance in the ‘preview content’ section. Shareable document preview links are now available for document collections.
2022-06-22 11:40
Reviewing and publishing content – Added information about ‘shareable document preview links’ in Whitehall Publisher for fact checking content.
2022-05-27 13:36
Creating and updating pages – Updated ‘create a new document’ guidance as publishers can now paste formatted text into the ‘body’ section and Whitehall publisher will try to convert the text into commonly used Markdown.
2022-05-27 12:03
Organisation pages – Added a section on how to add HTML attachments to corporate information pages.