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kimber_hebert (Kimberly Hebert, she of no signature?)
wondered <<What is the prevailing sentiment regarding the
size of screen captures in an 8.5 x 11" document?>>
I suspect the prevailing sentiment will be "whatever size is
appropriate". Although it's useful to pick something relatively
standard in terms of size, it's much more important to pick a
size large enough to show what you want the reader to be
able to see, and no larger. This size is likely to vary among
screenshots as a function of their content.
<<Obviously, 100% of actual is far too large.>>
Not necessarily. For some purposes, such as a wholistic
overview of an application that contains a main screen with
many subwindows or palettes, you really may need to use a
whole page so you can provide the full context and explain
the relationships among the parts. That's not common,
certainly, but it isn't impossible either. Think, for example, of
an engineering schematic presented online; you may actually
need to go to a multi-page foldout to effectively explain
things. (And you may not... that's not the best example.)
<<I am including full screen captures and must label their
parts with call outs... It seems to me that a screen capture at
65% of actual should be sufficient.>>
"When in doubt, test it out." (And you can quote me!) Pick
10 people typical of your audience (and preferably not the
programmers or other experts, since they already know what
the screenshots contain) and show them half a dozen
alternatives of varying size. Anything that's too small for 1 or
more of the people is too small (you can't ignore 10% of your
audience), so pick the smallest size that offends none of them.
You can certainly get more sophisticated with your testing,
but this will at least give you a first cut at the basic size you're
aiming for. Then make sure the text in all other screenshots is
at least that large, no matter what size the resulting graphic
becomes.
"Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all those sevens,
something just calling out for us to discover it. But I
suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence." George
Miller, "The Magical Number Seven" (1956)