RE: Standards on Using Graphics, Screen Captures, Illustrations, What-have-you In Doc

[Paul Hanson <twer_lists_all -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I would add that you should avoid drawing rectangles or arrows around specific menu options, if you have to show the entire menu. I also think you shouldn't have a number that corresponds to the step number in a procedure.

For example, you have a menu with 5 options and your user guide has to have a separate topic / page / section <whatever> for each of those 5 options. You can take the screenshot once, store it in a central place (depending upon your tool) and then reference that screenshot in each of those topics / pages / sections. The advantage / reason you would want to do this is that if a menu option is renamed, you have to update 5 topics / pages / sections with the updated screenshot. Also, if you draw a rectangle or arrow around a specific menu option, you have 5 screenshots to manage. Storing the screenshot and referring to it in those 5 places means when a menu option is renamed, you update the screenshot once and all of those 5 topics / pages / sections are updated. The mechanics of how you will do this will depend upon your tool. I've done it in tools such as Confluence, Word, and RoboHelp, but I'm sure you can do it in other tools (those are the ones about which I'm familiar.)

Ask me off-list if you want to see where this theory was applied successfully.

Paul Hanson
My blog: http://prhmusic.blogspot.com  Â 
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Twitter: @prhmusic



-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+twer_lists_all=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+twer_lists_all=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Chris Morton
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2018 3:07 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Standards on Using Graphics, Screen Captures, Illustrations, What-have-you In Doc

I thought the MS guide specified whether an SS should appear before or
after its written instruction.

Anyway, I always crop shots so as to focus on the item being discussed.
Sometimes this means overlaying the cropped, enlarged, sectional SS over a
small full screen image that provides context. This is a sort of "exploded
view." I might add guidelines from the corners of the exploded view to
indicate relative positioning.

Other times I might simply crop the fullscreen image so as to focus the
reader's attention on a particular location.

I always attempted to keep each SS proportionately sized with respect to
one another.

Chris Morton
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<https://www.the-efa.org/memberinfo/chris-morton-10670/>
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On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 3:59 PM Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
wrote:

> That doesn't say anything about screen shots except that "screenshot"
> is one word.
>
> The old Microsoft Press style guide doesn't, either, except to note a
> couple of document types where screen shots might be appropriate.
>
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 12:49 PM Chris Morton <chris -at- isntthatwrite -dot- com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Maybe https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/welcome/oking for
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