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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robart, Kay
>
> I never use quotation marks for things like this.
>
> It depends upon what elements of the interface are being described. The
> Microsoft Style Guide calls for menu commands, buttons, and dialog box
> elements to be bolded but for window names to not be, and that's what
> I've been following for years. In fact, I was doing that for years
> before then, because I started on UNIX computers and we followed the
> Sun
> style guide, which had the same rule. However, you should follow
> whatever style your organization has determined, and if it doesn't have
> a style guide, it might be a good time to start making decisions like
> this with the other writers in your organization, if there are any, and
> writing those decisions down.
Some of us have learned to avoid bolding as an identifier because
we produce WebHelp, and for some years the bold attribute was
considered unreliable in webbish contexts - browsers could treat it
differently, it was overtaken by <strong> </strong>, which could
sometimes be rendered as italic, rather than bold, etc.
Fortunately (?) we still provide a command-line interface to
the software side of our products, so for single keys and buttons,
my "standard" has been to surround the item in square brackets
like [ OK ] or [ Yes ], [ No ], [ Enter ], [ < ] and [ > ].
For other stuff - and for the GUI we'll eventually have - I
also like Janice's approach.
- kevin
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