Re: MS Manual of Style, disagreements with -Reply

[Yvonne DeGraw <yvonne -at- SILCOM -dot- COM>]

Adele Higgins <adele -at- insurquote -dot- com> and Robin M. Allen
<robin -dot- m -dot- allen -at- worldnet -dot- att -dot- net> wrote that they use a vertical bar (pipe)
rather than an arrow in menu command instructions.

Previously, I used a vertical bar, also. It also caught on well in the
corporate culture. The doc tool I was using at the time didn't provide an
easy way to do arrows in text.

Eventually, I decided that I wanted a character that provided a sense of
motion and connection rather than separation. Also, I found that advanced
audiences thought about the redirection function of a pipe in a UNIX command
or saw it as providing options. (In SQL and other syntax definitions, "[ one
| two ]" can mean include either "one" or "two".)

I think "File | Open" works, but "File->Open" works better for me. (Perhaps
not enough to change if you are already using File | Open, because these
styles can really become a part of corporate/customer culture.)
Yvonne DeGraw, Technical Services     o Technical Writing
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