A confidentiality marking on every page that cannot be missed

Why this block is harder than it looks

The whole point is that a page separated from the document still carries the marking, which means the page margin rather than the cover, exactly like the revision marker, and the two compete for the same boxes. The marking also has to be legible at a glance without dominating the page, which is a narrower band than it sounds: too faint and it reads as decoration, too heavy and it makes the document look like a prop. And a marking is a claim about how the document must be handled, so applying it to a document that is not actually restricted devalues it everywhere it is used.

The decisions that make it work

Reasons rather than a description of the code. Each of these is a choice that has a wrong answer, and the wrong answer is usually the default.

• Put it in a page margin box so it appears on every page including the last, and choose a box the folio is not already using.
• Set it in small capitals or uppercase at around 7 to 8 point, in the body text colour rather than a grey. It is an instruction, not furniture.
• Use one marking per document and use the exact words your own classification scheme defines. Inventing a level is worse than not marking.
• Centre it at the top or foot rather than putting it in a corner. A corner marking is read as a page number at a glance.
• Do not combine it with a watermark of the same word. One or the other: both together is the visual equivalent of shouting.
• Where a document is only partly restricted, mark the restricted pages with a named page rather than marking everything, or the marking stops meaning anything.

The fragment

Markup and the CSS it needs, and nothing else. It expects a document that already has a page rule and a base stylesheet, so paste it into one rather than opening it on its own.

<style>
  @page {
    size: A4;
    margin: 26mm 20mm 26mm;

    @top-center {
      content: "Commercial in confidence";
      font-size: 7.5pt;
      letter-spacing: 0.14em;
      text-transform: uppercase;
      color: #1d1812;                    /* body colour, not a grey */
      vertical-align: top;
    }
    @bottom-right {
      content: counter(page) " of " counter(pages);
      font-size: 7.5pt;
      color: #666;
      vertical-align: bottom;
    }
  }

  /* an unrestricted appendix, marked separately rather than by omission */
  @page open {
    @top-center { content: "Not restricted"; font-size: 7.5pt;
                  letter-spacing: 0.14em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #666; }
  }
  .appendix-open { page: open; break-before: page; }
</style>

What breaks when it is built the obvious way

Putting the marking only on the cover. A document circulated as a stack of loose sheets then has one marked page and twenty unmarked ones, and the twenty are the ones that get left on a desk.

How to prove it survived pagination

Print pages three and four alone and confirm both carry the marking. Then hold the page at arm's length: the marking should be readable without leaning in, and it should not be the first thing your eye lands on.

Where it sits in a finished document

This page is one block. The document it belongs to has a page rule, a base stylesheet, a header and everything else around it, and repeating all of that here would make thirty pages that say the same thing. The non-disclosure agreement template is a complete file with this block already in it, so take that and change the fragment rather than assembling one from parts. The property doing most of the work here is covered on its own page, with the support caveats that belong there rather than here.

Frequently asked

Other parts of a document

The blocks that sit next to this one, and one from the next group along so you are not sealed inside a single kind of problem.