Re: Nested Headings

Subject: Re: Nested Headings
From: Brigitte Johnston <bjohnston -at- HTEC -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 07:16:33 -0500



>Ellen Vanrenen wrote:
>
>>I have a colleague, who was an excellent technical writer in a former
>>life, who has suggested that I change my template to use "nested"
>>headings... I like the Heading style more or less parallel.
>>Readers would see a symmetrical page.
>>
>>I'd like your opinions, please.
>>

And from Bruce Byfield:

"Nested headings originated because, in the days when typewriters roamed
the office, there weren't many ways to make one heading different from
another. That's no longer true. In fact, we have so many different
options now for differentiating headings that nested headings could be
said to be obsolete."

...Wow! I use indented headings ALL the time. They help give the reader
visual cues on how the information is organized, and help provide much
needed white space - when there's alot of text on a page. I can't imagine
NOT using them...When I see a full page of text with no indents and not much
white space, I have no desire to start slogging through it all...FYI - The
top level heading in all of my documents is flush left, and the rest are
indented the same amount, but I'm using progressively smaller sizes for
Heading 2, 3, etc. This way, it's very obvious when a new section starts
and what exactly belongs to that section.

Matter of personal preference maybe, I don't know...

Brigitte Johnston
Tech. Writer/Editor




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