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It doesn't have to be hard. It takes neatly numbering the parts and
creating two lookup tables. One table organized by part name and the
other organized by part number. It has limitations, but if we're
trying to do our readers a service and make information accessible, it
is may be worth the effort. Unless you're working on a product with
tens of thousands, or millions, of parts. Of course, that would
require sorting which Frame doesn't do.
The big question is how will people look up the information. Are you
trying to find where a part is located, or are you trying to identify
a part that you know where it is, but have no idea what it is called.
It all goes back to one of the top-ten rules of techwriting, "Know
your audience."
Susan Gallagher Wrote:
> > I'm so glad I've never had to do this, because IMO there's
> > no good way. Either things are numbered in alphabetical order
> > and the numbers are scattered willy-nilly over the illustration,
> > or the numbers on the illustration are in a reasonable order
> > and the list is arranged numerically so it's impossible to
> > scan the list for a specific feature (e.g. where's the
> > mute button???).
>
And Eric Dunn replied:
> I've seen it all.
>
> 1 - Numbering has to match the parts catalogue >> procedure
illustrations
> don't have sequential numbers.
> 2 - Numbered in order of procedure. Which includes all illustrations
> number sequentially and all common part in each illustration keep
the same
> callout.
> 3 - Numbered sequentially (counter-)clockwise.
> 4 - Numbered as per engineering BOM (no logic).
> 5 - Random.
>
> Seems that no matter what the general rule, they all end up looking
like
> the fifth type. ;)
>
--
Tom Johnson
Elk Rapids Engineering
231-264-5661 x. 5033
tjohnson -at- starcutter -dot- com
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