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Subject:Re: "dummy" books to footnotes for definitions From:Faith Weber <weber -at- EASI -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 28 Mar 1994 13:18:29 PST
Chuck Martin asks:
>One question comes to mind: would such marginal definitions replace
>a glossary, which would then be redundant? Do we make users look in the
>index, which would point to the definition in the book, or would that
>be violating reader's expectations to leave out a separate glossary
>section?
I hate to say it, but I think if there's any chance that users may
want to just look up a term when they're not looking at the rest of
the manual, they'll want a separate glossary in addition to
definitions in the margins. If I had to look up definitions in the
index, I'd be annoyed -- it's an extra effort, however small.
Some word processors (notably Word for Windows) or DTPs allow you
to reference text from another location. This would be an efficient
way to include both.
Faith Weber
EA Systems Inc.
weber -at- easi -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com
