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.
Subject:Re: problems with docs in ascii format From:John McDermott <jjm -at- JKINTL -dot- COM> Date:Sat, 4 Feb 1995 09:58:06 PST
..
>I've been struggling with how to present commands in the ascii version of
the
>documentation. I've checked several other university gopher sites for
ideas,
>but none that I've found use a consistent method: some use both all-caps
and
>double quotes in the same document. All-caps wouldn't be bad, but it
>won't work for our Unix docs, because Unix commands are case sensitive. I'm
>also concerned that no matter how many notation keys I include, if I use
>quotes, people will think that they are part of the command. As I'm
working, I
..
>Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation? Any suggestion?
>Thank you!
>Tamara Miller
When I have multiple fonts I use some sans-serif for the regular text and a
Courier type font for commands and code. In straight ASCII I've used this:
--- begin example ---
The UNIX command for listing the contents of a directory is 'ls'. For
example:
ls /usr/man
There are also options...
--- end example ---
Note the *single* quotes around the command and the indentation of the
command in the third line. I have never (knowingly) had someone get
confused with this after the first example or so.
--john
-------------------------------------
Name: John McDermott
E-mail: jjm -at- jkintl -dot- com (John McDermott)
Voice: +1 505/377-6293 FAX: +1 505/377-6313