§7.3.5

Margin Banners

Text running up the margin—body text, furniture, or a watermark?

✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §7.3.5 in the RFC ↗

The requirement

Rotated text printed along a side margin MUST be rendered once, as a furniture block of its own outside the body flow, with its words kept — branding included. It MUST NOT be tagged as a watermark unless it actually overlays the content.

When it applies

Text printed rotated along the page margin, outside the content area: an archive stamp, a brand line, a firm mark. Unlike a watermark (§7.3.13) it does not overlap the content, and unlike a page header it is not in the top or bottom margin.

Sketch of the printed page — layout, not output

 U │                                         │
 S │  Overview of Risk Ranking Symbols       │
   │                                         │
 E │  One way to rank environmental impacts  │
 P │  …                                      │
 A │                                         │

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

The words MUST be kept. Some banners are document metadata — "US EPA ARCHIVE DOCUMENT" tells the reader the document is superseded, the same kind of fact "DRAFT" carries. Branding is printed text too, and MUST NOT be dropped as decoration.
The banner MUST be one block of its own, rendered once on the page, and MUST NOT be spliced into a body sentence, table or list.
The [watermark: …] marker MUST NOT be used for text that does not cross the content.
The rotation MUST NOT be described. The words are the content.
The samples place the banner at the start of its page's content.

✅ SampleThe rule applies

an archive stamp down the left margin

"US EPA ARCHIVE DOCUMENT" printed vertically in a red band, full page height, beside an ordinary text-and-table page. The banner carries a fact about the document that appears nowhere else on it.

Source page

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Specialty-Batch Chemical Manufacturing Industry — EMS Implementation Guide (Appendix D) (public domain)

Expected output · excerpt, banner and page bands

US EPA ARCHIVE DOCUMENT

SPECIALTY-BATCH CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY — EMS IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

…

Appendix D — 8

Markdown

US EPA ARCHIVE DOCUMENT

SPECIALTY-BATCH CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY — EMS IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

<!-- … -->

Appendix D — 8

✅ SampleThe rule applies

a brand line on a slide

"PRECISION & MOTION" runs down a decorative band on the left of the slide. This is branding, but it is still printed text.

Source page

Expected output

PRECISION & MOTION

Interest-Bearing Debts

Borvika Bearings AB — Investor Presentation, FY2025

Instrument	Currency	Rate	Maturity	Balance (SEK mn)
Senior unsecured bond	SEK	3.85%	2027	1,250
Term loan A	EUR	4.10%	2026	640
Term loan B	EUR	4.40%	2029	480
Revolving credit facility	SEK	3.60%	2028	210
Lease liabilities	SEK	2.90%	2030	95
Total interest-bearing debt				2,675

Weighted average cost of debt for the period was 3.9%, down from 4.2% in the prior year, reflecting the refinancing of Term loan A at a lower margin.

✅ SampleThe rule applies

a firm mark on pleading paper

A small rotated wordmark, ARCLIGHT LEGAL COPY SERVICES, in the left margin of a court filing, beside the line numbers.

Source page

Expected output · excerpt, the banner

ARCLIGHT LEGAL COPY SERVICES

…

Markdown

ARCLIGHT LEGAL COPY SERVICES

<!-- … -->

✅ SampleThe rule applies

a download stamp on a journal article

Downloaded via VARENBROOK UNIV on February 22, 2021 … See https://pubs.velmora.example/sharingguidelines rotated up the left margin of a first page, in two lines. Metadata about this copy, printed nowhere else.

Source page

Expected output · excerpt, the banner

Downloaded via VARENBROOK UNIV on February 22, 2021 at 01:49:16 (UTC). See https://pubs.velmora.example/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.

…

Markdown

Downloaded via VARENBROOK UNIV on February 22, 2021 at 01:49:16 (UTC).
See https://pubs.velmora.example/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.

<!-- … -->

Look-alike

Two similar pages that call for different decisions. Synthetic, for teaching the boundary.

Words printed sideways or diagonally that are not body text. Where do they go?

A margin banner

Overview of Risk Ranking Symbols

One way to rank environmental impacts is…

The convention

A separate furniture block. Not a watermark.

A watermark

DRAFT

The parties agree that the term

shall commence on the effective date

and continue for twelve months.

The convention

Recorded once, out of the flow, in a watermark tag.

Look at the structure. What evidence changes the answer?

Sample sources1

Public-domain U.S. federal government source material.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Specialty-Batch Chemical Manufacturing Industry — EMS Implementation Guide (Appendix D)

Rule id text-margin-banners · text marks layout

When it applies

Requirements

Interest-Bearing Debts

Look-alike

Words printed sideways or diagonally that are not body text. Where do they go?

A margin banner

A watermark

Neighbouring rules, and how they differ

More