TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
RE: Numbered versus unnumbered heads in very technical reference guides
Subject:RE: Numbered versus unnumbered heads in very technical reference guides From:Daniel Feiglin <daniel_f -at- radwin -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:46:27 +0000
One issue that has not been addressed in this thread, is that of cross references.
1. For "print style" documents such as PDF, it is certainly better to tell the reader to "see section 1.2.3" rather than "see Attaching Thingamabobs to Doohickeys" or even "see page 1-23". You can do hyperlinks in PDF and the like, but they are useless when printed.
- "Yeah, but who prints?"
I know that my UMs get to all sorts of odd-ball places where relevant sections are printed.
2. For Web documents it goes the other way. It makes much sense to say "see here", where "here" is a character formatted hyperlink. I find numbered headings in Web documents to be an annoyance.
3. In practice, you can single-source with output-medium dependent headings and cross reference formats.
Daniel Feiglin| Technical Writer| RADWIN | t. +972 (3) 769 2827 | f. +972 (3) 769 2875 | m. +972 (52) 3869986 | Skype baba_danny | www.radwin.com
follow us on: Twitter . LinkedIn . Facebook
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+daniel_f=radwin -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+daniel_f=radwin -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of David Crosswell
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 00:55
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Numbered versus unnumbered heads in very technical reference guides
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:49:44 AM Julie Stickler wrote:
> By all that is holy, if you're going to number headings (and I can
> appreciate Fred's argument for numbers), limit the number of levels
> that you have! At my last job we had numbered headings that went six,
> seven, eight levels deep. I think I might have found one section that went to nine
> levels. And it was not pretty.
Ludicrous!
If you are going in anywhere near that deeply, your document obviously needs to be restructured.
Cheers!
David.
<Massive snip>
--
"Res publica non dominetur."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
New! Doc-to-Help 2013 features the industry's first HTML5 editor for authoring.
