RE: When to bold

["Murrell, Thomas" <TMurrell -at- alldata -dot- net>]

> From: 	Susan Arbing[SMTP:Sarbing -at- ITCCanada -dot- com]
> 
> I'm in the midst of a discussing about bolding menu commands in
> procedures.
> 
> I am writing a manual for a software program. My QA person is suggesting
> that I bold the commands.  For example, in the step "Click Save" save
> would be bolded. 
> 
> I'm not inclined toward bolding. I think bolding is more useful
> intraining materials and tutorials where a user is being introduced to a
> product and needs a lot of emphasis and reinforcement.
> 
Forgive me for throwing a wrench in the works here, but this seems more like
a working relationships issue.  At your place of employment, does QA have
the final say about questions of style and presentation in your
documentation?  Personally, I wouldn't like that, but if that is the case
where you work, then you have to find a way to work with your QA person to
resolve this style issue.  What I do, at a place where the Documentation
Team makes all its style decisions and documents them in its style guide, is
irrelevant to your situation.

One of the reasons we have a style guide and use other style books as
references is so that we can agree on where our standards are coming from
and not let these decisions be at the whim of one person (even if that
person is me, who is always right, because I am, that's why).  If you don't
have a style guide to fall back on, and if you don't get to make the final
decision in these matters, you need to be discussing this issue with those
who do make these decisions where you work.

In my less than humble opinion <g>, it doesn't matter what we denizens of
the list think.  What matters is what is done where you are working.

Respectfully,
Tom Murrell