software control terms (Returned to the original Topic)

[Butler, Darren J Ctr 584 CBSS/GBHAC]

>an subjective art (??!!)

 

Sure, I write for a living.

 

 

 

Like most of us, I often battle with some of my technical customers over
verbs (and don't-get-me-started on adverbs like "gradually") such as
"choose". Since most of these folks aren't the target audience for my
documents, they usually lose the debate. How they want me to say
something isn't always the way my readers will understand it.

 

 

(Back to the Original Topic).

 

I'm curious to hear from technical authors who use rendering conventions
to differentiate between on-screen items (e.g. buttons, check-boxes and
screen titles), function keys (e.g. Enter, F3 and spacebar), and entries
that are to be typed.  My office has settled on a convention that seems
to work for our software customers but I'd like to know how others are
writing software documents.

 

 Are you using visual markers such as boxed words or bolded words; or
are you using consistent terms such as:

 

            Term 1 - Always a keyboard function

 

            Term 2 - Always a screen function

 

            Term 3 - When either function may be used

 

            Term 4 - Always typed entries

 

 

Blessings,

 

Darren

 

****************************************

 

Darren J. Butler

 

Sr. Technical Writer-Editor, Template Wrangler, Mil-Spec Pharisee

 

Integrated Data for Maintenance

 

NG Corp