Article guidelines

Manual for articles ordered through self-service. Applies to PR articles on all Drbna network portals. See also the sample PR article and what we can do (in Czech).

General

1. An article is never written as if Drbna wrote it (no first person).
2. Academic titles and legal forms of companies (s.r.o., a.s. etc.) are generally not used. We also do not use ALL CAPS.
3. Write the article directly in the editor, or load it from Word (.docx) or OpenOffice (.odt). Upload photos separately in the editor, not embedded in Word.

Mandatory structure

An article must always contain at least:

• a headline,
• one lead photo,
• a lead paragraph (perex),
• continuous body text.

Headline

1. A concise text carrying the complete message of the article. Maximum length is 90 characters.
2. The headline always contains a verb. No brackets, no more than one comma, and no s.r.o., a.s. etc.
3. The headline does not start with a date or a number, and contains no long numerals.
4. No links or any other formatting in the headline. No full stop at the end. Quotations in the headline are written without quotation marks.

Lead photo

1. Size at least 1200 × 700 px, always landscape. JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB — we scale down larger resolutions ourselves.
2. No watermark in the lead photo; a logo may be part of the photo (e.g. on a building wall or a product).
3. The lead photo must not contain artificially added graphics, logos or text — it is always a news-style photograph. Never a flyer or your own graphic design.

Photos in the text

1. You can place up to 3 more photos in the text. They are inserted in the editor right where they belong in the article.
2. Self-service offers no gallery below the article — a photo that is neither the lead nor in the text will not pass the check.
3. For every photo, give the author and confirm you hold the rights to use it.

Lead paragraph (perex)

1. The perex is the first paragraph of the article — a short text (usually 2–5 sentences) that introduces the article, attracts attention to the longer text or hints at what the article is about.
2. Recommended length is at least 200 characters including spaces; maximum length is 300 characters including spaces.
3. No links or direct speech in the perex (no formatting).

Body text

1. The article is always continuous text without bullet points or numbering, in Czech, grammatically and stylistically correct. Bullet points may only complement continuous text.
2. Recommended length is about one standard page, i.e. 1,800 characters including spaces.
3. We recommend breaking the text with subheadings and quotations that catch the reader's attention.
4. The text may contain up to 5 links applied to specific words.
5. The text never starts with a date — always with a standard sentence. The article must not read as if written by Drbna (no first person). No academic titles or legal forms of companies.

Tags

1. We recommend preparing your own tags, which help with SEO. The recommended number is 3–5.
2. If no tags are supplied, we generate them automatically.

What we can place in a PR article

Besides continuous text, a PR article from the editor can include the following elements (much like the sample article):

• subheadings and a quotation with its author that break up the text and draw attention,
• an info box presenting a project, company, event or anything else,
• up to 3 photos in the text,
• links on specific words (up to 5),
• supplementary bullet points — only as a complement to continuous text.

Every PR article on the site is labelled PR článek (PR article) with a link explaining commercial articles on Drbna — this is a statutory duty of the publisher, not grounds for a complaint.