Right then, I’m having a sign made and I’ve created the design and logo myself, I’m having the telephone number printed in one corner but I’m not sure what the correct format is.
Which one is correct? I’ve seen variations of all of them on signs but I’d like the correct one

tel:0123 123123
or
tel.0123 123123
or
tel 0123 123123

any help would be greatly appreciated

Jesus H… those numbers are NSFW!!

tel.0123 123123

Well the abbreviated tel should have a full stop after it, but should probably have a capital T

Tel. 0123 123123

Is it for English tuition?

tel – should be tel. full stop ‘cos it’s abbreviated

then colon (:) because you got the number

tel.:01323 3232323

do you actually need ‘tel’ at all? Everyone knows what the number is!

Why would you need to put tel before the number? Surely it’s obvious it’s a telephone number and not just a random collection of numbers.

Could be a fax number?

Could be a fax number?

Does anyone still use fax machines?

Does anyone still use fax machines?

I think so, heaven knows why. Hateful, hateful pieces of ‘technology’

Yup.

Back when I was working in print, we had a policy of dropping punctuation where not really necessary, like phone numbers; just leaving a space or several after Tel kept things looking neater. I know it’s not really correct, but customers generally preferred the look.
Laying it out:
Tel 00000 000000
Fax 00000 000000
Mob 00000 000000
Just looks a bit tidier that way, and nobody except the local Pedant Police is going to give a toss, basically.
[edit] that’s strange, when I sent that, for some reason it was re-formatted, so the zeros, which I’d put spaces in front of so they aligned vertically, all shifted left, totally losing the point. Buggerit.[/edit]

I always use this > tel: 0123 123123

the tel is on there to try to make it the same length as the web address on the other side. It’s for a shop sign, personaly I’d just use the colon but mrs spev says she needs to know the correct way and who am I to argue?

colon with a space before the 0

the correct way for punctuation may not be correct for clarity in a sign, but in reality no one really gives a poo other than MrsSpev

Signs are presentational – it’s a design issue, not a punctuation issue.

Use whichever looks cleanest and will allow you to use a consistent format with others without any looking odd. From a design point of view, if you have “web” then personally I would drop the full stop from “tel” (if you don’t have anything before your URL then I wouldn’t include “tel” at all) – as for the colon, that’s up to you but use it on both or neither.

TBH without seeing the whole design it’s impossible to say.

cheers all, mrs spev has wandered off to ponder it some more

if you want to be correct it surely should be
Telephone: 0123 345 6789

The reality these days is that you could drop the ‘Tel’ completely. Everyone knows what a telephone number is, and It was really only to differentiate between telephone and fax numbers. If there’s no fax, you don’t need the Tel. Same as web addresses, the www. is totally redundant, everyone knows a URL when they see it. You don’t even need to show if it’s a landline or cellphone, the code shows the difference and pretty much everyone now can tel an STD code from a mobile one.

put the country code there too so it makes it look like your have international clients.

Another print worker here! What others said, really. It’s whatever works on the page in a case like this. Tel.: would be unspeakably ugly, even if someone argues it’s correct (and I speak as a pedant who jumps up and down about apostrophes).

Web isn’t an abbreviation. Fax isn’t technically an abbreviation. Mob is. So if you try to be ‘correct’ each line could end up punctuated differently and that would be hideous.

Some people even put
t 000 000 0000
m 00000 000000

If it conveys the required information correctly, that’s what matters.