South Carolina Transcript Format: One Tab Stop, and Four Ways to Break a Sentence
What the authority actually is
Worth being precise, because it changes how much weight the document carries. South Carolina's transcript standard is not a rule of court or a statute — it is the Judicial Department's Court Reporter Manual, an employment manual for reporters the state employs. It covers leave policy, a dress code and equipment alongside transcript format. For South Carolina trial-court transcripts it is the operative statewide standard; it is not legislation, and this guide doesn't present it as such.
That employment framing has a practical consequence most state guides don't need to mention:
"A court reporter employed by the Department is a full-time employee and is not allowed to accept outside employment as a court reporter. Transcription of courtroom proceedings as addressed herein is not regarded as outside employment." Court Reporter Manual, § III
South Carolina's trial-court reporters are salaried state employees rather than independent contractors — so the freelance economics that shape the profession in most states don't describe the courtroom work here.
Who may report — and voice writing counts
There is no South Carolina licensure examination. Eligibility is a high school diploma plus one of two things:
"1) an associate degree or a certificate in court reporting from an accredited or approved program/institution; or 2) a Registered Professional Reporter (RPR) certificate or a Certified Verbatim Reporter (CVR) certificate." § III.B
The CVR is the voice-writing credential, named alongside the stenographic RPR without qualification. The manual then ties method to qualification: "The method of reporting used in qualifying as a court reporter must be the method used to report all court proceedings unless the court reporter has successfully demonstrated to Court Administration proficiency in a different method." Method isn't fixed by the state so much as pinned to what you demonstrated.
Every proceeding has a recording, by rule
This provision has no equivalent in most of the states we've researched:
"Court reporters are required to use a digital backup recorder for capturing the record and must preserve the record for the five-year period referred to in Rule 607(i). Court reporters may receive a one-time reimbursement of up to $100 from the Department for the purchase of a backup recorder… Records should be backed up daily and stored monthly, and are subject to a random audit for compliance." § VIII, Required Backup Equipment
A digital recording of every South Carolina proceeding exists because the manual requires one, is kept for five years, and can be audited. The manual's records provisions build on that: voice writers "must clearly label audio recordings as primary or backup and number each in chronological order," reporters using computer-aided transcription retain steno notes and audio, and recordings are filed with the trial logs, dated and organised by docket number, county and judge.
The page
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| "10 cpi, 6 lines per vertical inch, or a font size of 12"; text double-spaced | |
| Margins | 1¾ inches left, ½ inch right — a 6.25-inch block, about 62 characters at 10 cpi |
| Lines per page | 25 on a full printed page |
| Page numbers | The title page is page 1 but must not be numbered; numbering starts on the first index page as page 2, placed "in the upper right-hand corner or at the bottom middle" |
| Volumes | Consecutive numbering across all volumes, however many there are |
| Paper | 8½ × 11, opaque, unglazed, at least 20-pound; no onionskin, no anti-copy paper |
| Binding | 3-hole punched, secured in a binder with a clear acetate front cover so the title page shows |
Two small things stand out. The page-number rule offers a genuine choice of position — top right or bottom middle — where other states pick one and mean it. And the paper is heavy: at least 20 pounds, against New Jersey's 13. A reporter may also have their own name printed at the foot of the page.
One tab stop does all the work
Most states publish a table of indentation columns. South Carolina publishes a sentence:
"Label all examination questions as (Q), and answers as (A) and print flush with the left-hand margin. Using this format, only one tab stop at 5 spaces from the margin is required. This tab at 5 is the beginning point for all indented text except for identification of witnesses, which is in the center of the line." § D.4, Spacing
That single column then governs everything else. Colloquy begins at the tab, with the speaker's name in capitals, a colon, and two spaces; succeeding lines return to the left margin. Paragraphs inside a narrative — the judge's charge to the jury is the manual's example — are "indented to the tab and all continuation lines starting flush with the left-hand margin." Witness identification is the one exception: centred, in capitals, followed by wording like "being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:". A change of examination is typed in capitals at the left margin with the examiner's identity, then a double space and back to Q and A.
It's worth appreciating how different this is from the other end of the spectrum. New Jersey assigns five separate columns — question labels at the sixth space, question text at the eleventh, answer labels at the margin, answer text at the sixth, colloquy at the eleventh. South Carolina has one column and a centring rule. Both produce a clean, readable court page; neither reporter could use the other's template.
South Carolina is also the state that most directly answers a question reporters ask about long judicial monologues — its jury-charge section presumes the charge is paragraphed. We cover what that means, and how it compares with the other states' paragraph rules, in the guide to paragraphing long testimony.
Four ways to break a sentence
This is South Carolina's real signature, and it's the only scheme of its kind we've found in any state authority or certified transcript. Where every other jurisdiction uses one dash convention for broken speech, South Carolina asks the reporter to record why the speech broke:
| What happened | Mark |
|---|---|
| The speaker changed thought mid-sentence and carried on with a new one | -- two hyphens |
| The speaker was interrupted | --- three hyphens |
| The speaker resumes after being interrupted | the sentence begins with --- |
| The speaker never finished — but nobody interrupted | . . . three periods |
The distinction being drawn is agency. A speaker who trails off has done something different from a speaker whom opposing counsel cut off, and different again from one who redirected themselves mid-thought — and in South Carolina the page says which.
This is a genuine divergence, and worth flagging if you work across state lines. The dash pair with a space on each side — the -- the — is close to universal elsewhere: it's what certified Supreme Court and federal trial transcripts use, what Michigan's certification board prescribes, and what New Jersey's rules state expressly. We documented that convention with counted evidence in the guide to repeated words and stutters. South Carolina's three-hyphen mark for an interruption is the documented exception to it, not a contradiction of it — and a transcript prepared under South Carolina's manual should follow South Carolina's manual.
A transcript built to be navigated
Two requirements show the manual's priorities. The first is a per-page header, which almost no other state asks for:
"Every transcript shall include a 'header' at the top of each page of testimony that clearly and concisely describes the contents of that page. Headers should appear in the top left column at least three to four lines before the numbered text begins, and with the type of examination conducted." § H, Headers
The second is the index, which is chronological rather than alphabetical and is meant to be built as you go: it cross-references witnesses, exhibits, opening statements, closing arguments, the charge of the court, the verdict, the sentence, and the reporter's certificate. Multi-volume transcripts get a master index in volume one. The exhibit list carries its own wrinkle — where an audio or video exhibit was played in open court, the reporter must state on the index whether it was transcribed, and if no exhibits came in at all, that has to be noted too.
Requests to charge are handled with the same care: those the judge charges are printed as part of the charge rather than filed as exhibits, while those refused are numbered as exhibits and attached. Jury movements — in, out, deliberating, returning a verdict — go in as parentheticals with times.
The certificate
Short, and notable for what it doesn't require:
"A statement must be made by the court reporter certifying the accuracy of the transcript. The certificate must be signed by the reporter; it does not need to be notarized. The completion date of the transcript must be included in the certificate." § P, Certificate of Court Reporter
No notary. That is a real difference from Michigan, whose manual certificate carries a notary block with the county of commission. If you're adapting a certificate across state lines, this is exactly the sort of clause that travels badly.
Primary sources
- South Carolina Judicial Department — Court Reporter Manual. All quotations above are verbatim from this document (§§ III, VIII, and the transcript-preparation sections B through P).
- Comparisons come from each state's own authority, cited in the linked guides: the SCAO Manual (Michigan), Transcript Format for Judicial Proceedings (New Jersey), 22 NYCRR Part 108 (New York), and the certified-transcript corpus described in our repeated-words guide.
Common questions
How many characters per line is a South Carolina transcript?
The manual sets margins rather than a character count: 1¾ inches left and ½ inch right, which at 10 characters per inch gives a 6.25-inch block — about 62 characters per line — across 25 lines.
What do three hyphens mean in a South Carolina transcript?
That the speaker was interrupted. Two hyphens mean the speaker changed thought on their own; three periods mean they trailed off without being interrupted; and a sentence that begins with three hyphens is a speaker resuming after an interruption.
Where does colloquy start?
At the single five-space tab stop, with the speaker's name in capitals, a colon and two spaces. Succeeding lines return to the left margin — there is no hanging indent.
Does South Carolina require a recording?
Yes. Reporters must use a digital backup recorder, preserve the record for five years, back up daily and store monthly — and compliance is subject to random audit.
Does the certificate need to be notarized?
No. It must be signed by the reporter and must include the transcript's completion date, but the manual expressly says notarization is not needed.
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