Re: periods inside quotation marks?

["Mason, Catheryn" <CMason -at- INFINITEC-COM -dot- COM>]

Shannon:
I'll pass along what I was once told; it clarified the entire
punctuation/quotation issue for me. The old printing presses used blocks
for letters and for some punctuation marks (colon, semi-colon,
exclamation mark). Half blocks were used for other punctuation marks so
that the printer could save space and money (comma, period, quotation
marks). When two half blocks could be used (a period and a quotation
mark) they were placed in the space of a single block, literally forming
one letter space. When two entire blocks had to be used, the quotation
block was placed before the punctuation mark ( "; ). As technology
progressed, "lower case" punctuation (for lack of a better term) moved
inside the quotation marks and "upper case" punctuation remained out, or
following. That's why we put a period inside quotation marks and a
semi-colon outside. I found that really enlightening, since the "rule"
made no sense to me otherwise. Anyway, all to say that I could be wrong,
but I've never heard of any flexibility with that rule. So I think,
regardless of the style issue here of having to use quotation marks with
button references, the period would definitely go inside. Ditto with the
ellipsis ( ..." ).  That's just my opinion, but if I had to make the
choice, I'd go with this procedure.