RE: Style guide and/or templates for Technical Instructions

["Joe Malin" <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com>]

One thing you might consider is looking at the software tools your
audience uses, and then going with some or all of the style decisions
those tools use. This might be different according to platform.

I agree that you want to use a small number of fonts/font styles.

I use the Microsoft Manual of Style (3rd Ed) for terminology and some
style decisions. I use Read Me First! (Sun Style Guide) for other style
decisions (page 57 is a good example of presenting typographic
conventions). I use Xerox Publishing Standards for book-related stuff,
and I use some ideas I got from Oracle for online help.

Joe


Joe Malin
Technical Writer
(408)625-1623
jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com 
www.tuvox.com
The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc.	

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jmalin=tuvox -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jmalin=tuvox -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Paul Abbot
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 8:17 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Style guide and/or templates for Technical Instructions

Hi,


I've been elected to create and maintain instructional documentation for
using various software development tools, like Visual Studio and
JBuilder.  Most of the instructions are of the form "open C++ --> go to
File --> Click New.. --> type filename.txt" with most of the steps
requiring a checkbox-like bullet so the person following can check off
each step.
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