Online Help Headings Question

[Debbie Hemstreet <deborah -dot- hemstreet -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Hi All,

I have a question regarding online Help headings.

When there are a lot of books in a Help file, and many subbooks as 
well... if you work according to strict printed documentation logic, 
headings can go as deep as 5 levels.

I know this is not idea, but here is the scenario:

A large Internet Software package (The whole big book)
Seven main modules (Seven sub-books)
Up to 10 main functions and procedures, with their own sets of 
requirements, etc, as well as how to for a screen (up to 10 subbooks)

The documentation will NEVER be provided as printed manual, nor as a 
PDF, only and ever as web-based Help (please no arguments here... this 
is what the client wants).

Is it reasonable to have up to 5 different types of headings?

Alternatively, I was thinking of the following:

One heading style first topic of each main module
One heading style for all topics that are purely theoretical in content
One heading style for all topics that provide step-by-step instructions
One heading style for any subheading within any of the above topics

Does this seem like a reasonable approach? If not, based on the above 
information, do you have any additional thoughts on the matter?
(I sure do miss working on a team where we can discuss all the different 
options and play with ideas before making a design decision....)

Thanks in advance!

Deborah
http://www.tech-challenged.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

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