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Formatting Your Resume for Laser Printing vs. HTML ( and, later, Cascading Style Sheets)

This file is designed to appear as a text file. The HTML codes copied off the screen to your work file. In this case the source files contain simulated HTML and should not be used.

Laser printing/HTML/stylesheet equivalents
PrintedHTML umeCSS
Hard returns<br> tags same
Paragraph break<p> tag<p> and <p /> tags
Bold face<b>bold</b> tagsfont:bold
Italics <i>italic</i> tagsfont:italic
Extra space character&nbsp; entity same
Simple Indent<DD> or <UL> tagleft-indent:xxx
Tab rows<TABLE><TR> tagmargin-left:xxx
Tab columns<TD>tag in rowmargin-left:xxx
Left angle <&lt; same
Right angle >&gt ; same
Ampersand &&amp; same


Resume checklist -- using simple HTML

  1. HEAD
  2. TITLE
    Add text to TITLE, seen in browser titlebar
    Example TITLE Howard Jones: Resume, Spetember 2001 /TITLE
    close HEAD, open body
    Example: /HEAD
  3. BODY
    Define background color as white -- gray is the default color in some browsers
    Example BODY bgcolor="white" -- a good starting color
    Colors names may also be expressed in a wider range of hex, Rgb, and ascii values
    A background texture or image may also be used -- but many beginners make the mistake of using avoid strong or distracting backgrounds
    Example: BODY background="bg.gif"
  4. FONT - a default typeface may be specified
    Example: FONT FACE="Times, Times Roman, serif" -- typical, widely available newspaper or book font
    Example: FONT FACE="Arial, Helvetica, sansserif" -- alternate standard font legible in small screen sizes
  5. FONT, continued, a font size.
    Example: FONT SIZE=3 (older standard for coarser monitors)
    Example: FONT SIZE=2 (recent standard for sharper monitors)
  6. FONT,contined, font color
    Example: FONT COLOR="black" -- a good starting color)
    Avoid bizarre text/background color combinations which are hard to read and print out
  7. HEADINGS: large <H1> and <H2> may be too large for resume
    Example: Try smaller <H3> heading
    Or just use boldface <B>Franklina Evans</B>for name,
    Address and phone information may not need any emphasis
    Use bold sparingly
    Avoid blue text and underlined text in HTML since blue underlines indicate a hypertext link .
  8. INDENTS
    Hard to do in plain HTML -- try UL or DD
  9. Margins
    <BLOCKQUOTE> indents both margins. Can be nested.
  10. Italics for emphasis
    Subheads may be in italics, less intrusive than bold
    Avoid long text passages in bold or italics
  11. Typical resume subheads
    Goal: statement can be set off with additional blockquotes)
    Education:
    Experience: (Often in reverse chronological order)
    Interests:
    Personal statement:
    Contact information Signature: E-mail address: (+1 space)
    <A href="mailto:username@pegasus.rutgers.edu">
    username@pegasus.rutgers.edu</a>

tables, graphics, stylesheets, lists


Resume checklist 3: Creating a hypertext navigation system:

1. Create a navigation line:
Top: Goal: Education: Experience: Interests: Statement: Signature:
2. Add jumps with "|" separators in your word processor:
--only spaces around "|" separator -- create verically
for legibility but it will be one line in HTML

<A href="#Top">Top:</a> |
<A href="#Goal">Goal:</a> |
<A href="#Education">Education:</a> |
<A href="#Experience">Experience:</a> |
<A href="#Interests">Interests:</a> |
<A href="#Statement">Statement:</a> |
<A href="#Signature">Signature:</a>


4. Add correponding "name" targets before each section.
Cue tags, .e.g Top</a>, are optional.


<A name="Top">
Top:

<A name="Goal">
Goal:

<A name="Education">
Education:

<A name="Experience">
Experience:

<A name="Interests">
Interests:

<A name="Statement">
Statement:

<A name="Signature">
Signature:

You may need to add a <BR> or <P> separator after each "name" tag for correct HTML display.


5. Create "Return to top" cues after each section -- although this may seem excessive for a short resume,it would be useful for something longer. It can go right before next "name" tag.

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>
<A name="Goal">
Goal:

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>
<A name="Education">
Education:

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>
<A name="Experience">
Experience:

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>
<A name="Interests">
Interests:

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>
<A name="Statement">
Statement:

<A href="#Top">Return to Top:</a>
<A name="Signature">
Signature:


6. Converting text to HTML:


HTML publishing utilities such as those to be found in Netscape (Composer), Word, WordPerfect, etc. are useful for quick jobs but require too much touch up. They use proprietary codes and strip out codes they don't support.

-- Search for all line ends (hard returns) and replace with <BR> + line end. Learn how your word processor handles hard return replacements. Don;lt omit the returns in the replacements!

-- If you have a double return at paragraph break, it will be converted.

-- Convert all text bold attributes and probably underlines and italics to <B>...</B> tags. Save italics for bibliographic citations. Avoid underlines since they can be confused with links.

-- Use <BLOCKQUOTE> and   to manage whitespace. More advanced methods will follow.

  -- To quote the angle brackets around a tag (or use them in math expressions), use &lt; for the left/opening bracket and &gt; for the right/closing bracket.


7. Test your system. If you cannot jump to the last item it is because there is not enough white space after it.


Add 15 or so <BR> characters after your last text.


8. You can convert your horizontal system to a vertical one:


--Enclose in <UL></UL> tags for bulleted list
--Add <LI> before each item
--Delete "|" characters
--Enclose in <P><HR><P> tags
--Add title <b>Sections of my resume:</b>


<P><HR><P>
<b>Sections of my resume:</b>

<UL>
<LI><A href="#Top">Top:</a>
<LI><A href="#Goal">Goal:</a>
<LI><A href="#Education">Education:</a>
<LI><A href="#Experience">Experience:</a>
<LI><A href="#Interests">Interests:</a>
<LI><A href="#Statement">Statement:</a>
<LI><A href="#Signature">Signature:</a>
</UL>
<P><HR><P>


9. Appendix:


Top: | Goal: | Education: | Experience: | Interests: | Statement: | Signature:



Sections of my resume: