TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: File names in text From:"William J. Hartzer" <William -dot- Hartzer -at- EMC2-TAO -dot- FISC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 23 Mar 1995 16:40:00 EST
Karen Kay commented that when she was documenting programs she used capital
letters to identify file names.
...............
Karen, you're half right, in my opinion. If you capitalize just the first
letter of the file name, your reader tends to think that it's just a typo and
probably ignores it anyway. Personally, I have gotten accustomed to writing
filenames in ALL CAPS. This still solves Karen's (karenk -at- netcom -dot- com) issue of
not being able to use another font because it is in ASCII text.
Personally, I CAPITALIZE all the letters in, for example: FILE.TXT, and also,
if feasible, I will also put the filename in bold type. In no case will I
ever change a font in the middle of a sentence! I WILL put it in caps, bold,
or italics. I find it utterly annoying to capitalize just the first letter
of a word (be it a filename or not) in the middle of a sentence. It's just
bad grammar.
Do you agree?????
Hope this helps,
Bill Hartzer
technical writer/multimedia writer
Fischer International Systems Corporation
Naples, Florida USA
William -dot- Hartzer -at- emc2-tao -dot- fisc -dot- com
