Indiana Transcript Standards: The State That Regulates the File
A transcript-format standard with a malware clause
Most state transcript rules read like typewriter manuals, because most of them substantially are. Indiana rewrote its standard for a world where the transcript is a file that gets handed to a clerk, and the result is a document that would look bizarre in any other state's rulebook:
"The Court Reporter shall take reasonable steps to ensure that the Transcript and other files do not contain malicious software ('malware'), such as viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. Any files that contain malware will be rejected. Rejection of a filing because it contains malware will not necessarily excuse a late filing." Appendix A(19)
That last sentence is the part with teeth: an infected file is a rejected filing, and a rejected filing does not automatically buy you more time. The surrounding provisions are equally concrete about the artifact:
| Requirement | Rule |
|---|---|
| Format | "searchable Portable Document Format ('searchable PDF')" or "searchable Portable Document Format for Long-Term Preservation ('searchable PDF/A')" |
| File size | Each file "no more than two hundred fifty (250) pages or fifty megabytes (50 MB)" |
| File naming | Mandatory convention CaseNumber-DocumentType-volume#.pdf — the rule's own example is 53C031601MI00123-Transcript-1.pdf. Valid document types: Table of Contents, Transcript, Index, Exhibit |
| Media | USB flash drives, CDs and DVDs "specifically formatted to store electronic data in a File Allocation Table (FAT) or File Allocation Table 32 (FAT-32) file system"; discs finalized so the Clerk can open them |
| Device labelling | Parties' names, trial case number, appellate case number if known, device sequence number, and the reporter's signature |
| Signatures | Either "a graphic image of a handwritten signature" or "the indicator '/s/' followed by the person's name" |
| Archival copy | The reporter retains a copy "in the original word processing version used for the transcription" |
Volumes follow the file, not the binder. A volume is one PDF of no more than 250 pages; multiple hearings are combined into a single volume until the cap is reached; a volume may run short deliberately "to avoid splitting a hearing between volumes"; and if the 50 MB ceiling bites before the page ceiling does, the page count drops and "the table of contents volume shall note each such instance of reduced page count."
The page — and why Indiana has no characters-per-line number
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Page size | 8½ × 11 inches |
| Margins | One inch on all four sides — text begins "no more than one (1) inch from the edge" on the left and ends one inch from the right |
| Lines | "No less than twenty-five (25) lines unless it is a final page"; page numbers and header notations don't count toward the 25 |
| Typeface | "must be 12-point type or smaller, shall be one of the fonts listed in Appellate Rule 43(D) and black in color" |
| Spacing | Double-spaced |
| Page numbers | At the bottom, consecutive, including the front page — and each volume restarts at 1 |
The typeface rule is the consequential one. Nearly every state in this library pins the page to a monospace pitch — ten characters to the inch — which is what makes a characters-per-line figure meaningful in the first place. Indiana instead points at a list of permitted fonts and a maximum point size. So there is no correct answer to "how many characters per line is an Indiana transcript": it depends which permitted font you chose. Florida is the only other state we've researched that allows a proportional font at all, and it still names Courier first. If you've been carrying a characters-per-line habit from another state, Indiana is where it stops meaning anything.
The one-inch left margin is also unusually narrow for a court transcript — Michigan uses 1⅜ inches by statute and South Carolina 1¾ — which gives Indiana a wide text block on the page.
Break the page for the reader, give back the billing
Buried in the numbering section is the most quietly principled rule we've found in any state's format standard:
"A page break may be inserted before and after sidebar conferences, bench conferences, and hearings on motions. Court Reporters are required to reduce the page count for billing purposes by one-half page for every page of Transcript that includes a sidebar conference, bench conference, or hearing on motions that is marked by such a page break." Appendix A(2)(c)
Indiana permits the formatting choice that makes a transcript easier to read and navigate, then removes the financial incentive to make it. Since a page is the billing unit, inserting breaks would otherwise inflate the invoice — so the rule hands back half a page for every page you improved. It's the sharpest available answer to a question that hangs over every formatting decision in a page-billed transcript, and it's the same principle we raise about paragraphing long testimony: format for the reader, never for the invoice.
Indentation and identification
| Element | Where it begins |
|---|---|
| "Q" and "A" designations | Left margin (a period after them is optional) |
| The statement after a Q or A | 5th space following the designation; subsequent lines return to the left margin |
| Colloquy | Speaker identification on the 10th space, followed immediately by a colon; the statement on the 3rd space after the colon; subsequent lines at the left margin |
| Quoted material (not depositions) | 10th space, with additional quoted lines also at the 10th |
| Parenthetical notations | Open parenthesis or bracket on the 5th space, the remark on the 6th |
| Speaker and event identification | CAPITAL LETTERS, centered — AFTER RECESS, DIRECT EXAMINATION, PLAINTIFF RESTS |
| Paragraphs inside a turn | No rule. Appendix A simply doesn't address them |
Indiana also requires a running examination header, which few states do: the reporter "shall note in boldface capital letters at the top of each page where a witness' direct, cross, or redirect examination begins." Speakers are named in full the first time and thereafter by fixed designations indented ten spaces — THE COURT, MR./MRS./MS./MISS plus last name, THE WITNESS, THE INTERPRETER, THE DEFENDANT.
What goes in, and the recording-era exception
Indiana's content rules will look familiar if you've read New Jersey's — the resemblance is close enough that the two documents plainly share an ancestor. The transcript "must contain all words and other verbal expressions uttered during the course of the proceeding." Nothing is dropped for being stricken: "The material ordered stricken, as well as the order to strike, must appear in the Transcript." And speech is not tidied:
"All grammatical errors, changes of thought, contractions, misstatements, and poorly constructed sentences must be transcribed as spoken." Appendix A(8)(b), Editing of Speech
Then comes the provision that could only have been written after courtrooms started recording themselves:
"Private communications and off the record conversations inadvertently recorded must not be included in the Transcript." Appendix A(8)(d)
A microphone left live captures things a stenographer's hands never would — counsel murmuring to a client, a conversation continuing after the judge says "off the record." Indiana makes removing them an obligation rather than a courtesy. Anyone producing a draft from audio should read that rule as describing a required review step, not an optional one.
Where speech can't be recovered at all, Indiana's markers are indiscernible and inaudible — a different pair from Maryland's inaudible/unintelligible distinction, so don't carry one state's vocabulary into the other. Interruptions take "a dash at the point of interruption, and again at the point the speaker resumes speaking." Customary events get standard summary phrases in parentheses: (Call to Order of the Court), (The Jury is Sworn), (The Witness is Sworn), (The Witness is Affirmed).
One table of contents, and it's its own volume
Indiana's navigation requirements are structural rather than typographic. There is exactly one table of contents for the entire transcript — "Only one table of contents should be prepared even if multiple hearings are transcribed" — and it is filed as a separate volume of its own. It lists every witness with the volume and page where direct, cross and redirect begin, and every exhibit with the volume and page where it was identified and where a ruling was made on admission. A separate index of exhibits goes in the front of the first exhibit volume and nowhere else.
Primary sources
- Indiana Rules of Appellate Procedure, Appendix A — Standards for Preparation of Electronic Transcripts, effective January 1, 2022. All quotations above are verbatim from the current rule text.
- Indiana Appellate Rule 43(D) supplies the list of permitted fonts referenced by Appendix A(6); Form #App.R. 28-1 supplies the front page.
- Cross-state comparisons come from each state's own authority, cited in the linked guides.
Common questions
How many characters per line does an Indiana transcript need?
The rule doesn't produce a number. Indiana specifies 12-point type or smaller in one of the fonts listed in Appellate Rule 43(D), rather than a fixed pitch, so the characters that fit on a line depend on the font chosen. Margins are one inch on all four sides.
What file format does Indiana require?
Searchable PDF or searchable PDF/A, with each file capped at 250 pages or 50 MB and named CaseNumber-DocumentType-volume#.pdf. Files must be free of malware, and a rejection on that ground does not necessarily excuse a late filing.
Can I insert page breaks around sidebars?
Yes — and you must then reduce the billable page count by half a page for every page containing a sidebar, bench conference or motion hearing marked by such a break.
Does Indiana have a rule about paragraphs?
No. Appendix A covers Q and A, colloquy, quotations and parentheticals but says nothing about paragraphs inside a single speaker's turn — so the column is the reporter's or firm's choice, applied consistently.
What happens to things caught on the recording by accident?
They come out. "Private communications and off the record conversations inadvertently recorded must not be included in the Transcript."
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