Stamps
Ink stamped over or beside the page—where does it go, and how is it written?
✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §7.3.11 in the RFC ↗
Ink applied over or beside the printed page — overprinted, boxed or rotated, or in a different
ink — MUST be rendered as [stamp: its words], exactly as printed, at its place in reading order.
A stamp with no legible words MUST be rendered as [stamp]. The page's own printed text is never a
stamp, however official it looks.
When it applies
A stamp records an act on this page: FILED, RECEIVED, PAID, APPROVED, a court e-filing line
laid across the header, a clerk's dated box. It was added after the page was printed, and it is
recognised by that: it overprints the page's text, sits in a box or at an angle the page's layout
does not use, or is in a different ink.
Reading the examples. Each one pairs a source page with the output the rule expects. ✅ Sample: the rule applies. ❌ Counter-sample: it looks like it applies and does not, or a rendering got it wrong. A non-conforming output, in red, is shown only for contrast. … marks content left out of an excerpt.
Requirements
- A stamp is written with the protocol's bracket marker,
[stamp: …], carrying its words exactly as printed; a stamp on several lines is one marker, its lines joined with a space. - It keeps its place in reading order. Where it overprints other text, the marker comes first, then the text beneath it — see Overlapping Text (§7.3.6). Over a table it stays outside the table — see Handwriting and Stamps (§9.6.5).
- A stamp whose words cannot be read is the bare
[stamp]. - A round seal is
[seal: …]— see Seals and Round Stamps (§7.3.9). A watermark, background text that describes the whole document, is[watermark: …]— see Watermarks (§7.3.13). The three share one bracket shape because each is ink laid on the page; they keep separate names because a watermark describes the document while a stamp or seal records an act on this page. - Header text that the page prints itself — a filing header, an official form number — is ordinary text, not a stamp.
a clerk's stamps over a filing header
The boxed FILED is stamped over the header's own FILED:, and Index #: E2026004417 over the
header's INDEX NO. E2026004417. The two stamps become markers, each first at its overlap; the
header's own lines stay text.
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, the header
[stamp: FILED]
FILED: HALVERSTON COUNTY CLERK 03/14/2026 11:05 AM
[stamp: Index #: E2026004417]
INDEX NO. E2026004417
[stamp: FILED]
FILED: HALVERSTON COUNTY CLERK 03/14/2026 11:05 AM
[stamp: Index #: E2026004417]
INDEX NO. E2026004417Neighbouring rules, and how they differ
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Rule id text-stamps · text marks legal