Are there any industry standards for white papers?
No. Anyone can call anything a white paper. And they do. But we can make some generalizations about most white papers today. The typical white paper is 6 to 8 pages long. But I have seen everything from a 2-page flyer to a 100-page book called “white papers.” The typical white paper has better production values than a technical manual, but nowhere near as glossy as a brochure or advertisement. The typical white paper is distributed as a PDF on the Web, although many are also printed and handed out on sales calls, in press kits, and at trade shows. As the white paper becomes a more standard document type, better understood by both writers and readers, more conventions may take hold. So far, these have been slow to emerge.
