Changes in the paper over time, and the ill-defined nature of the ink blot, are not satisfactory for this degree of discrimination. Because different printers and scribes render the same character differently, character representations in RET concern generic entities. Spacing between words is highly irregular in Renaissance texts. In general, unless otherwise specified, word-separator spaces are rendered as single, no matter how small or large the physical gap between the words. The layout of each book is kept, including word-separation, lineation, indentation, paragraphing, and pagination, but this is managed mainly by tagging.
All text is entered where it appears.
The electronic transcription of an empty page includes essential page tags but has no blank spaces. Abbreviations are all tagged as such and are normally expanded, except where a very literal transcription is desired. Damaged, interlineated, and canceled text is all tagged. Encoding is governed by the need for economy, accuracy, and readability. For further discussion, see the RET encoding guidelines.