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Re: GUI elements - how do you format them in your docs?
Subject:Re: GUI elements - how do you format them in your docs? From:Yves Barbion <ybarbion -at- uni-learning -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 03 Nov 2005 15:33:24 +0100
Hello Carla (and fellow techwhirlers),
I call these GUI elements "controls" and I tag them as follows:
1. Click the <control>Start</control> button. 2. Choose
<control>Tools</control> > <control>Options</control>, and then click the
<control>View</control> tab.
Using a dedicated tag has the following benefits:
- The formatting can vary, depending on the medium (e.g. bold in print
or PDF; colored text in Help).
- The user can easily distinguish between regular text and UI text.
- Localization: you can generate lists of text in "controls" for your
translators and they will know that they have to pay special attention
to these <control>s.
- Localization: if you use a tool like FrameMaker, you can use different
language settings for "controls" and regular text. For example, suppose
I'm writing a French user guide about an English software program. I
will use French in my paragraph tags for regular text (for hyphenation
and spell checking) and English in the settings of my <control> tag.
FrameMaker will automatically switch between both dictionaries when
hyphenating and spell checking the text.
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