RE: Table punctuation

["Andrew Warren" <awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com>]

Nancy Allison wrote:

> The table has two columns, labeled:
> 
> This field . . .    Allows you to . . . .
> 
> ....
> 
> One of the rows is like this:
> 
> Clown name          - Enter a name for your personal clown, or
>                     - Leave blank for us to choose one for you.
> 
> Only after pain and struggle did I unpick the original run-on sentence
> into two clearly stated alternatives. I'm proud of my clearly stated
> definition of the Clown name field! But . . . its formatting is a tad
> tricky.

Nancy:

You're worried that one bulleted line ends with ", or" while all the
others end with a period?  Why not recombine the two alternatives, like
this:

    Clown Name        - Enter a name for your personal clown (leave
                        blank for us to choose one for you).

Not only does that satisfy your need for terminal-period consistency, it
also integrates more smoothly with the column headings.  The old way,
with a bullet for "Leave blank....", reads as: "This field -- Clown Name
-- allows you to leave blank for us to choose one for you", which sounds
a little awkward to me.

-Andrew

=== Andrew Warren  - awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com
=== Synaptics, Inc - Santa Clara, CA
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