Re: Poll: How do you differentiate commands, etc. in text?
What do each of you do (if anything) to emphasis text for online use?
So far, I am doing something like this for procedures:
Diana,
Less is more. The simpler you can make the styling, the clearer it will be to the reader and the less likely you and your coworkers will screw up in implementing the style.
I use--and recommend--caps and lowercase to name things. Period. Press Enter. Type your name in the Name field. The Customer Account window opens. Click the New Address button. Etc. (Those are not meant to constitute a sequence of steps; they're unrelated examples.)
I've suggested before, and apparently convinced a few people that it makes sense, using caps and lowercase when referring in documentation to longer UI labels, even if sentence case is used for the labels themselves. For example, if a Print dialog has a field labeled "Number of copies," I would refer to it in documentation as the Number of Copies field.
Using caps this way and avoiding font changes, bolding, italics, etc., meets Edward Tufte's criterion of "least perceptible difference" and serves your purpose well, I think.
HTH,
Dick
http://www.dmargulis.com/typography.asp
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Poll: How do you differentiate commands, etc. in text?: From: Diana Ost
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