# U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual/About This Manual

By act of Congress the Public Printer is authorized to determine the form and style of Government printing. The GPO Style Manual is the product of many years of public printing experience, and its rules are based on principles of good usage and custom in the printing trade.
Editors and writers whose disciplines have taught them aspects of style different from rules followed in this Manual will appreciate the difficulty of establishing a single standard. The GPO Style Manual has served Federal printers since 1894, and with this 30th edition, the traditions of printing and graphic arts are carried forward in the 21st century.
Essentially, the GPO Style Manual is a standardization device designed to achieve uniform word and type treatment, and it aims for economy of word use. Such rules as are laid down for the submission of copy to GPO point to the most economical manner for the preparation and typesetting of manuscript. Following such rules eliminates additional chargeable processing by GPO.
It should be remembered that the GPO Style Manual is primarily a GPO printer's stylebook. Easy rules of grammar cannot be prescribed, for it is assumed that editors are versed in correct expression. Likewise, decisions on design and makeup are best determined by the individual publisher to meet the needs of the intended audience. As a printer's book, this Manual necessarily uses terms that are obvious to those skilled in the graphic arts.
Users of the GPO Style Manual should consider it as a general guide. Its rules cannot be regarded as rigid, for the printed word assumes many shapes and variations in type presentation. An effort has been made to provide complete coverage of those elements that enter into the translation of manuscript into type.
The GPO Style Board made significant revisions to update this edition of the GPO Style Manual. The changes include redesigning the format to make it more modern and easier to read; replacing "What is GPO Access?." with "GPO's Online Initiatives"; removing the atomic weights column from the Chemical Symbols table; expanding and updating time zone abbreviations; ​listing additional entries to the Post Office abbreviations; extensively reviewing the capitalization chapter to remove outdated entries and include new ones; realigning the abbreviations lists to create a new list of technical abbreviations and initialisms; updating old and adding new tables to the Useful Tables chapter; expanding military titles; creating new sample pages for the Reports and Hearings chapter; providing many URLs as references; and including many suggestions by users.
Comments and suggestions from users of the GPO Style Manual are invited. All such correspondence should be addressed as follows:
GPO Style Board
Mail Stop PDE
U.S. Government Printing Office
732 North Capitol Street, NW.
Washington, DC 20401
email address: gpostyle@gpo.gov
For the purposes of the GPO Style Manual, printed examples throughout are to be considered the same as the printed rules.
Acknowledgments
The GPO Style Board would like to thank the following people for assistance in the production of this edition of the GPO Style Manual:
Stanley P. Anderson, Editor, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Soil Survey Center, Lincoln, Nebraska, for the new soil orders in the capitalization chapter.
Molly N. Cameron, for technical advice on the Index.
Robert W. Dahl, Cadastral Surveyor, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Minerals & Realty Management Directorate, Division of Lands, Realty & Cadastral Survey (WO-350), for his contribution of the Principal Meridians and Base Lines of the United States tables.
Cynthia L. Etkin, Program Planning Specialist, Library Services and Content Management, Government Printing Office, for her technical advice on the ANSI/NISO standards for publications.
​Robert R. Finch, Mark E. Rockwell, Michele L. Spiro, Operations Directorate, Document Automation and Production Service (DAPS), Defense Logistics Agency, for their contribution to the list of military ranks.
Dean Gardei, Brand/Web Manager, Government Printing Office, for the design of the cover and title page.
Jeremy Gelb, Pre-Press Specialist, Government Printing Office, for technical assistance in the production of this Manual.
Geography Division, U.S. Census Bureau, for supplying the cities list.
Robert McArtor, past Chairman of the GPO Style Board and U.S. Board on Geographic Names, who acted as an adviser to the present GPO Style Board.
Joanne Petrie, Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Department of Transportation, and Andrew Novick, National Institute of Standards and Technology, for their assistance with time zone abbreviations.
Betty R. Smith, composition system operator, Government Printing Office, for technical assistance in the production of this Manual.
Douglas E. Smith, Sr., Internal Printing Officer, Government Printing Office, for preproduction planning and administrative assistance.
Janice Sterling, Director, Creative Services, and Marco Marchegiani, Graphic Designer, Government Printing Office, for development and production of the new design.
Marcia Thompson, Director, Congressional Record Index Office, Government Printing Office, for revisions to the pages relating to the Congressional Record Index.
Employees of the Proof and Copy Markup Section of the Government Printing Office, for their contributions during the production process.
Current users who have contributed many ideas and suggestions that were incorporated into this edition of the GPO Style Manual.