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: Clarification on Text Styles From:Geoff Lane <geoff -at- GJCTECH -dot- FORCE9 -dot- NET> Date:Fri, 12 Dec 1997 14:57:19 -0000
Beth Agnew wrote, asking how other writers handled typographical
conventions:
>
>I've sure appreciated the responses to my trolling for discussion on
>multiple text styles. However, it's evident that a little clarification
>might be in order.
> [huge snip...]
---
Hi Beth,
FWIW, I do denote user input, system response, screen object names, etc.
with different *styles* (i.e. Word or WordPerfect styles). Like yourself,
I've discovered that a page having many different type styles (i.e. fonts)
looks overly 'noisy'. This is why I use word processor styles as tags and
develop templates from which I can import the appropriate 'look and feel' (a
bit like DSSSL). That way I don't have to make formatting decisions until
just before I release the document.
WordPerfect is a beauty in this respect because its styles can contain
almost anything. So, for example, if I want to change "user input" from
Courier Bold to the body text font, and then delimit it with double quotes,
I just delete any font specification from the style and add a double quote
to either side. All instances of that entity type change to follow the new
typographical spec.
HTH,
Geoff Lane
geoff -at- gjctech -dot- force9 -dot- net
