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Subject:Re: Company Style Sheets From:Lee Taylor <leetay -at- CSN -dot- ORG> Date:Tue, 19 Oct 1993 20:52:11 -0600
I'd make a distinction between style *guidelines* (relative to word usage,
terminology, tuncuation rules, etc.) and style *guides* relative to the
physical/mechanical/logical act of publishing. Particularly with the
power available in DTP these days, any shop with simultaneous pubs and
more than, say, six writers, that *does not* enforce format standards is,
IMHO, in deep weeds. I agree that maintaining an impeccable (sp?) style
guide is a real black hole of resources - but articulating format
standards isn't all that tough, and is fairly specific and stable (well,
okay, specific at least). Keeping, say, a FrameMaker templplate in an
annotated version (so that the para tags describe themselves in the
template document) is simply an exercise in avoiding frustration and
unnecessary rework.