Re: Bold or not bold...that is the question

[Susana Rosende <SRosende -at- THEFUND -dot- COM>]

Kathy and all:

I'd searched our office library shelves for this book and finally found it
today. Sure enough, the following information is stated in the section named
"Document Conventions."

Item: User input

Convention: Usually lowercase (note also bold or italic, depending on
element), unless case-sensitive or to match standard capitalization
conventions

Example: Type -ppassword (The first 'p' is bold; 'password' is italic.)

I understand the example to mean 'password' could be either bold or italic.

--Susana Rosende

-----Original Message-----
From: GALVIN, KATHLEEN [mailto:KATHGA -at- SAFECO -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 1999 11:38 AM
To: 'Susana Rosende'
Subject: RE: Bold or not bold...that is the question


I don't see that anyone mentioned The Microsoft Manual of Style for
Technical Publications. All the user interface element styles have already
been worked out and it's what people who use computers are used to if they
live on this planet. Why not take advantage of it.

Kathy Galvin



                -----Original Message-----
                From:   Susana Rosende [mailto:SRosende -at- THEFUND -dot- COM]
                Sent:   Tuesday, July 20, 1999 11:32 AM
                Subject:        Bold or not bold...that is the question

                I've been assigned the task of editing our product's
training guide. The
                procedure commands are currently in quotes. The format
doesn't look good
                because the original writer placed all punctuation outside
the quotes,
                fearing that the users would otherwise include the comma or
period when
                keying information.

                I thought of using bold, but the window names, tab names,
field names,
                button names, and icon names are all bold Ariel. Now, I
would be adding the
                text to be keyed in, as well. (The body text is Times
Roman.)

                Does anyone have any suggestions besides bold or italics to
set apart the
                text to be typed? The only other solution I've thought of is
using a larger
                point size, but then the text would be confused with the
headers, which are
                _also_ bold Ariel and larger font.

                I'm using FrameMaker. All suggestions welcome.

                Susana Maria Rosende
                Sr. Tech Writer
                Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund
                Orlando, FL 32822
                SRosende -at- thefund -dot- com

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