Formatting Books and In-Universe Texts

The Creation Kit uses HTML code to implement in-universe texts; the books, notes, and journals that the player can pick up and read. While a full explanation of how to draft and implement these texts is beyond the scope of this guide, the headings below include project-specific guidance for achieving consistency. 

Writers and coders should always remember that text in the Creation Kit may not appear as expected in-game, and that it may be necessary to get creative with formatting and field test ideas in the current build to get the desired result.

Variation between texts

The general punctuation and formatting rules outlined in the previous sections may be slightly relaxed to reflect in-universe idiosyncrasies of style among authors (e.g., one author may opt to use single rather than double quotation marks, or not use the serial comma). Likewise, some words may be misspelled intentionally to indicate the writer’s unfamiliarity with a term. However, it is not recommended that texts deviate too substantially from standard US orthography.

Font choice

The default font should be used for in-universe texts, regardless of the text’s context or content. Therefore, the rough “handwriting” font used for scribbled notes in Skyrim, Viner ITC, should not be used in Skywind.

The only exception to this is text that appears in square brackets as an aside to the player from the narrative voice (mentioned earlier in this guide), rather than actual written text on the page, e.g., “[This book appears to be written in the Dwemer language. From the illustrations, it appears to be a work of cultural significance.]” This should be formatted as standard size “$EverywhereFont,” which is the same font used in dialogue and menu text. If practicable, it should be left aligned in the middle of a separate page to set it apart from the main body text, as shown in the below screenshot.

Line, paragraph, and page breaks

The use of the function “<BR>” changed between Morrowind’s Construction Set and Skyrim’s Creation Kit: in the former game, it creates a line break, but in the latter, it creates a paragraph break. Furthermore, in the Creation Kit it is possible to add these breaks through regular word processing, rather than using code. Use of “<BR>” in the Creation Kit is therefore not recommended, and should never be used in conjunction with a word-processed paragraph break (i.e. pressing the “Enter” key twice), as this will create a large amount of whitespace. 

Most page breaks will be naturally created as the text flows from one page to another; there is no scrolling down an unending page as when reading Morrowind scrolls. However, as in many word processor applications, paragraph breaks are preserved between pages, and may need to be removed after field-testing in game to avoid whitespace at the start of a page. 

“[pagebreak]” will add a new page beginning on the following line. It is often necessary to add one at the start of a book, not only for the sake of main title formatting, but also because centered text can otherwise cause an error by centering the first paragraph on every following page. Formatting issues may also be caused when using a whole-page image: as any following content will already be pushed over to the next page, adding a [pagebreak] may leave you with a blank page.

Font size 

The default font size in the Creation Kit is 22. Books and journals can use different font sizes within reason to allow for a more aesthetically pleasing layout or reduce or increase the page count; however, body text should generally be between 18 and 24, and should generally be no smaller than 16 or larger than 38 for other uses (such as titles). “Notes” (anything on a scroll or a sheet of paper) should use only the default size for anything likely to run to a full page or more in length. This is because any variations in formatting will cause the last line on a page to be partly cut off.

Citations

Quotes from in-universe texts, such as in loading screens or item descriptions, should usually be attributed, even where the quotation has been entirely concocted for that purpose alone -- be creative! Citations must use the following style of punctuation:

"[Quote]" -- [Name], [Title]

Note that there should be no period at the end. Also, as the Creation Engine cannot handle italicization, the title should be written out in plain text. 

In cases where titles may be confused for names (or vice versa), the title should be given in double quotes. For example:

-- Ulixes of Vilverin, "Alessia"

In cases where the title or author’s name is unknown, the missing element may be dropped from the citation. 

Where both are unknown (or sometimes merely to cultivate an air of mystery), the citation should not be dropped entirely, but should instead read:

-- Unknown