Overlapping Text
A stamp printed over text—which string comes first?
✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §7.3.6 in the RFC ↗
Where two printed strings overlap, each legible string MUST be rendered whole, in a block of its own, with the stamp first. Legible fragments MUST be kept; characters hidden by the overlap MUST NOT be reconstructed.
When it applies
Two printed strings occupy the same space. The common case is a court e-filing stamp — Case 1:19-cv-00892 Document 36 Filed 04/04/19 Page 2 of 2 — laid across a header the page already
had, so the two texts interleave character by character.
4/4/2019 PresCase 1:19-cv-00892-KSC Document 36 Filed 04/04/19 Page 2 of 2ates | The White House
↑ browser print header ↑ filing stamp, printed over it
The stamp is the more important string — it identifies the exhibit — but the underlying header is still printed content.
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
- Every legible string MUST be kept: the stamp and the text beneath it are both printed. Keeping only the more legible one drops content.
- The strings MUST NOT be interleaved into one line. Each is rendered whole, in its own block.
- At the overlap, the stamp MUST come first, as its
[stamp: …]marker (see Stamps (§7.3.11)), followed by the string it is printed over. - Characters that the overlap hides MUST be left out rather than guessed; the legible part of the string is kept — see Never Drop, Never Invent (§2.2).
a filing stamp over a print header
A web page printed to PDF, then filed: the blue filing stamp sits directly on the grey browser
header line, and the two are unreadable as one string. Read apart, both are legible. The footer URL
and 2/2 are untouched.
Source page
Source: Executive Office of the President, Presidential Proclamation Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border, Feb. 15, 2019; filed as court exhibit (public domain)
Expected output · excerpt, header and footer
[stamp: Case 4:19-cv-00892-HSG Document 36-4 Filed 04/04/19 Page 3 of 3]
4/4/2019 Presidential Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States | The White House
…
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-declaring-national-emergency-concerning-southern-border-united-states/ 2/2
[stamp: Case 4:19-cv-00892-HSG Document 36-4 Filed 04/04/19 Page 3 of 3]
4/4/2019 Presidential Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States | The White House
<!-- … -->
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-declaring-national-emergency-concerning-southern-border-united-states/ 2/2two filing stamps over a print header
An exhibit divider page — EXHIBIT D alone — whose header carries the clerk's boxed FILED
stamp over the header's own FILED:, and Index # over INDEX NO., both overprinted. Everything
but the page count at the foot is set in bold.
Source page
Expected output
[stamp: FILED]
FILED: HALVERSTON COUNTY CLERK 03/14/2026 11:05 AM
[stamp: Index #: E2026004417]
INDEX NO. E2026004417
HCEF DOC. NO. 2
RECEIVED HCEF: 03/14/2026
EXHIBIT D
56 of 61
[stamp: FILED]
FILED: HALVERSTON COUNTY CLERK 03/14/2026 11:05 AM
[stamp: Index #: E2026004417]
INDEX NO. E2026004417
HCEF DOC. NO. 2
RECEIVED HCEF: 03/14/2026
EXHIBIT D
56 of 61three headers on one line
A browser print header, an e-filing stamp and the article's own Page 22 of 37 all printed at the
top of a nearly empty page, on top of each other. The browser timestamp is legible up to 09; the
characters after it lie under the stamp's opening Ca and are left out.
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, the header lines
[stamp: Case 24-10432-ABC Doc 118 Filed 03/02/24 Page 12 of 40]
4/2/2024, 09
Charitable Giving
Page 22 of 37
…
[stamp: Case 24-10432-ABC Doc 118 Filed 03/02/24 Page 12 of 40]
4/2/2024, 09
Charitable Giving
Page 22 of 37
<!-- … -->Neighbouring rules, and how they differ
More
Sample sources1 +
Public-domain U.S. federal government source material.
- Executive Office of the President, Presidential Proclamation Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border, Feb. 15, 2019; filed as court exhibit
Rule id text-overlapping-text · text marks legal