formatting

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The visual style of a document, such as its fonts, borders, and spacing.

   Consistent formatting throughout the thesis impressed the review committee.

   He adjusted the formatting so the headings stood out from the body text.

   Similarlayout, styling, presentation, design, typography

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of format.

   The editor is formatting the manuscript for publication.

   Formatting the report properly took her most of the afternoon.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every verb sense of format, so formatting a report means laying it out, while formatting a drive means preparing it for use and erasing what was on it. Note the doubled t. As a gerund it takes a direct object (formatting the report took all afternoon), whereas the noun for a document's look takes of instead: the formatting of the report.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The code in a markup language that determines how a document is displayed.

   The page rendered incorrectly because the formatting contained a missing tag.

   She edited the formatting directly in the HTML to fix the broken layout.

   Similarmarkup, code, tags

   Note

   Here the word moves from what the reader sees to what the writer types: the instructions in a document's source, not the look they produce. The look itself is the visual style. When a page renders wrongly, this is the layer to inspect. It is usually a mass noun (the formatting), but it can be counted (formattings) when separate sets of instructions are compared.

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