Re: Manual design 101

["Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM>]

At 12:17 PM 2/25/97 -0600, Anne Chenette wrote:
>Help!  I need some simple tips for designing a manual set.
>
>What I'm looking for is a book or list of Design 101 tips, like a
>one-day class on the subject, so I don't have to spend too much
>time researching the details.  (I will refine and improve the design
>gradually, over the next year.)  Basically, I want a summary of the
>things we all develop a feel for over time, like the "best" point size,
>good fonts for legibility, rules of thumb for white space, headers
>(run-in VS separate columns, etc, etc, etc.  I would especially
>like to know the latest trends and research, all in an easy-to-skim,
>list-oriented, exhaustively indexed format.  Something like a
>"Dummy's Guide to Manual Design".
>
Once again I tout Philip Rubens, ed. _Science and Technical Writing: A
Manual of Style_, the Swiss Army knife of scientific and technical writing
(ISBN 0-8050-1831-X). The chapter called "Designing Useful Documents"
provides a succinct 45 pages of advice.

--Wayne Douglass

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