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Agreement from here that a single-step procedure that uses "1." looks
strange, if not silly. Like, say you were trying to get your teenager to
take out the garbage, that's all, just one little task, you wouldn't say
"First, take out the garbage." (Or maybe you would, just to mess with their
head.)
As a way of indicating that you're describing a procedure, and not just
chatting, you can start the one-step procedure with "To..." which always
gets the reader's attention. Or, you can use a nifty filled triangle
character (icon) (bitmap) pointing to the right to call attention to the
step. I would use either of those way before using step 1 all by itself.
Actually, I would never use step 1 all by itself, I mean, that's just weird.
