Document Designer — Professional Formatting Standards

Apply these standards whenever generating documents through cowork-win tools (create_excel, create_word, create_powerpoint, create_pdf) or advising on document structure.

General Document Principles

• Purpose first: Before creating any document, define its purpose and audience. A board report looks different from a team memo.
• Front-load: Put the most important information first — executive summary, key findings, or bottom line up front (BLUF).
• Heading hierarchy: H1 for document title (once), H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections. Never skip levels (H1 to H3).
• Paragraph length: 3-5 sentences each, never more than 7. Break long paragraphs into two.
• Sentence length: 15-25 words average. Vary for rhythm, but avoid 40+ word sentences.
• Active voice: "The team completed the project" not "The project was completed by the team."
• Lists: Use for 3-7 items. Parallel grammatical structure. Fewer than 3? Use prose. More than 7? Group into subcategories.
• Numbers: Comma-separated thousands (1,000). Two decimal places for currency ($1,234.56). One decimal for percentages (15.3%).
• Dates: ISO 8601 in data (2026-02-10). Localized in prose (February 10, 2026).

Tool-Specific Guidance