ICONTEC NTC 1486 Standard

Complete reference for the ICONTEC NTC 1486 Colombian academic standard.

Overview

ICONTEC (Instituto Colombiano de Normas Técnicas y Certificación) is the Colombian organization responsible for technical standards. The NTC 1486 standard defines the formatting rules for academic and technical documents in Colombia.

NormaDocs supports ICONTEC NTC 1486 for scientific and research documents.

Default Configuration

name: "ICONTEC (NTC 1486)"
version: "1.0"
citation_style: icontec

fonts:
  body:
    name: "Arial"
    size: 12
  headings:
    name: "Arial"
    level1:
      alignment: center
      bold: true
      uppercase: true

margins:
  unit: cm
  top: 3
  bottom: 2
  left: 3
  right: 2

spacing:
  line: 1.5
  paragraph_before: 0
  paragraph_after: 0

page_setup:
  page_numbers: true
  header: false
  first_page_number: 1

tables:
  borders: full
  caption_prefix: "Tabla"
  caption_above: true

figures:
  caption_prefix: "Figura"

Formatting Rules

Typography

Element	Font	Size	Style
Body text	Arial	12pt	Normal
Headings	Arial	12pt	Bold, Uppercase for Level 1
Captions	Arial	11pt	Normal

Spacing

• Line spacing: 1.5 throughout the document
• Paragraph spacing: No additional space before or after paragraphs
• Margins: 3cm (top, bottom, left), 2cm (right)

Page Layout

• Page numbers appear in the footer, centered
• No header on any page (including first page)
• First page number: 1
• No running head

Tables

• Borders: Full grid borders on all tables
• Caption position: Above the table
• Caption prefix: "Tabla" (e.g., "Tabla 1. Descripción del sistema")
• Caption style: Normal weight, left-aligned caption

Figures

• Caption position: Below the figure
• Caption prefix: "Figura" (e.g., "Figura 1. Arquitectura del sistema")
• Caption style: Normal weight, left-aligned caption

Document Structure

Cover Page

The cover page is generated automatically from YAML frontmatter metadata. The structure includes:

[Title - centered, bold, uppercase]
[Subtitle if present]
[Blank line]
[Author Name]
[Author ID / Student Code]
[Program Name]
[Regional Center Name]
[University Name]
[Location (City, Country)]
[Date - Year only]

Required Sections

ICONTEC documents typically follow this structure:

1. Resumen (Abstract) - 150-250 words, single paragraph, no indentation
2. Introducción (Introduction) - Context and justification (no heading title)
3. Marco Teórico (Theoretical Framework)
4. Antecedentes (Background)
5. Planteamiento del Problema (Problem Statement)
6. Metodología (Methodology)
7. Diseño de Investigación (Research Design)
8. Población y Muestra (Population and Sample)
9. Instrumentos de Recolección de Datos (Data Collection Instruments)
10. Resultados (Results)
11. Discusión (Discussion)
12. Conclusiones (Conclusions)
13. Recomendaciones (Recommendations)
14. Referencias (References)
15. Anexos (Annexes) - Supplementary materials

Keywords

Keywords appear after the abstract with the format:

**Palabras clave:** word1, word2, word3

YAML Frontmatter Fields

ICONTEC uses these specific frontmatter fields:

---
title: "Research Project Title"
subtitle: "Subtitle if applicable"
author: "Author Name"
author_id: "Student Code"
program: "Academic Program Name"
center: "Regional Center Name"
institution: "University Name"
location: "City, Country"
date: 2024
---

Field	Description	Required
title	Document title	Yes
subtitle	Optional subtitle	No
author	Author's full name	Yes
author_id	Student code or ID	Yes
program	Academic program name	Yes
center	Regional center name	Yes
institution	University name	Yes
location	City and country	Yes
date	Year of submission	Yes

Reference Format

ICONTEC uses a specific reference format:

Book

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of book in italics. Publisher.

Journal Article

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Article title. Journal Name, Volume(Number), pages. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Online Resource

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of page. Website Name. https://url.com

Comparison with APA 7

Aspect	APA 7th	ICONTEC NTC 1486
Body font	Times New Roman 12pt	Arial 12pt
Heading font	Times New Roman	Arial
Line spacing	Double	1.5
Top/bottom margins	1" (2.54cm)	3cm
Left margin	1"	3cm
Right margin	1"	2cm
Table caption	Above, "Table X."	Above, "Tabla X."
Figure caption	Below, "Figure X."	Below, "Figura X."
Running head	Yes (left header)	No
Abstract language	English	Spanish

CLI Usage

# Convert Markdown to ICONTEC DOCX
normadocs document.md -s icontec

# Generate ICONTEC PDF
normadocs document.md -s icontec -f all

# With abstract keywords
normadocs document.md -s icontec --language-tool