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Subject:Is there a more succinct way to say this? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:Technical Writing <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Craig Cardimon <ccardimon -at- M-S-G -dot- com> Date:Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:38:38 -0400
Craig Cardimon wondered: <<Is there a better way of saying, "Press
ENTER or click the OK button?" >>
The shorter way is "Press Enter or click OK". (Note that on most
keyboards, "Enter" isn't all caps.
However, how to deal with this depends on your overall approach to the
documentation. If you've decided that all steps must have both the
mouse command and the keyboard shortcut, you need both. But it's very
common (for a general audience) to present only the mouse commands, on
the logic that this will let everyone succeed, and that those who are
interested in keyboard shortucts will either know them already (e.g.,
will know how to activate standard menus and select menu choices using
Alt+letter commands) or will be willing to look them up in a special
cheat-sheet that you have provided. If you're willing to try that
"show only one way" approach, the simplest solution is just "Click OK".
For an audience that may include a significant number of naive users,
"Click the OK button." is better, because such users may think that
"click" refers to clicking the letters on the keyboard. No, really...
this kind of thing happens, at least according to a few tech support
staff I've talked to.
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Geoff Hart (www.geoff-hart.com)
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
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Effective Onscreen Editing: http://www.geoff-hart.com/books/eoe/onscreen-book.htm
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