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While this is all entirely true, many standards that
have been created or substantially modernized over the
years, such as ISO, ANSI and the FDA's 21CFRp11, don't
specify requirements for document layout and formatting.
One reason for this is that many of the documents produced
to these specs are not produced by technical writers,
but by engineers, scientists and business/financial
people. In some industries, the use of writers is as
new as WP and DTP. One reason why we sometimes hear
writers complaining that they're treated like secretaries
is that before computers and email eliminated most of
the clerical staff, that's who used to do much of the
hands-on work of document production.
Gene Kim-Eng
------- Original Message -------
On
Thu, 12 Feb 2004 09:28:39 -0800 Gilger.John?wrote:
Short answer to a long question:
The standards body was more interested in the content of the documentation and a standardized ordering of that content. SGML was invented to take care of some of the presentation issues.
When many of these standards and their predecessors werer developed, typewriters were the only tool available for the writer. The government printing office, or one of its contractors, took care of design and layout issues.
Believe it or not, word processors and desktop publishing are a _very_ recent phenomonem. :)
