How evil is copy and paste?
Subject: How evil is copy-and-paste?
From: Craig Hadden <craig_john_hadden -at- yahoo -dot- com -dot- au>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 16:15:59 +1000 (EST)
X-Message-Number: 4
Recently I updated a user guide in which the original
author thought it was a really smart idea to use
Hi, Craig,
I think this depends on the kind of document.
And on the software you are using. (Instead of copy and paste, may be you can use text templates.)
In an overview section, you will not have a lot of text to copy and paste.
When I started writing as technical writer, I tried to avoid to repeat the same text. But this was not good. I went trough the manual and regularized the style.
You should consider to use one style for steps and not to change it. This is good for reading. The user will see the essential things and will not have to think about differences in style. If you have two places and use different text for the same procedure, the user may think, the procedure itself is different.
You should avoid too many cross references. Especially you should avoid cross references to cross references.
There may be differences in style depending on the purpose: reference, tutorial, user manual ...
Note: If you use the same article on two places, you should not duplicate the source, but use a link to copy the same text twice automatically.
This avoids mistakes during the update process.
Best regards
Bernd
Bernd Hutschenreuther
Technical Writer
net-linx Europe GmbH
Käthe-Kollwitz-Ufer 76-79
01309 Dresden
Germany
phone: +49 351 31875-732
fax: +49 351 31875-550
home: +49 351 8483427
www.net-linx.com
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