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.
I wrote command line procedures for a UNIX application
in my prior job, so maybe I can provide some ideas.
As someone else pointed out, when dealing with command
line procedures it's important to provide basic
instructions, commands, and syntax in the beginning of
the manual. In addition, my colleague and I followed
several guidelines:
- Knowing that people focus only on numbered
procedures, limit the amount of text they contain.
- Make commands distinctive by putting them on their
own line, even when they're short (such as the DOs
command dir).
- Put the commands in a distinctive font, such as
Courier or Courier New.
- Use bold or italic text for variable data (such as
the client## or clientname in your case).
- Use a rigid style and technique for every procedure
(such as, "...follow these steps:").
- Put "Note" type information/disclaimers before the
procedures. Consider using a subsection such as
"Before You Begin" or "Preparing to Roll the Pasta"
for this information.
So...here are my suggestions for your examples:
Before You Begin
If you have been working with the discrepancy report
instructions, you may be in the dde directory. Before
you can complete the such-and-such task, you must
change the directory in which you're working. To do
so, follow these steps in the xterm window:
1. Type the following command:
cd work
2. Press Enter. The system changes the directory (see
figure X).
Changing the Directory
To begin the such-and-such task, you must change the
directory in which you're working to the study work
directory. To do so, follow these steps in the xterm
window:
1. Type the following command:
cd /dat/client##/clientname/protocol/work
2. Press Enter. The system changes the directory.
Hope this helps,
Steven Brown
Senior Technical Writer
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Announcing new options for IPCC 01, October 24-27 in Santa Fe,
New Mexico: attend the entire event or select a single day.
For details and online registration, visit http://ieeepcs.org/2001
Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
