Re: Word to describe an empty check box

[Hannah Drake <hannah -at- formulatrix -dot- com>]

This discussion caught my interest so I did some research:



Check box*

Square box that is
selected or cleared
to turn on or off an
option. More than
one check box can
be selected.

Example:


Select the Spaces
check box.

–or–

Click to clear the
Bookmarks check
box.

–or–

Under Show, select
the Draft font
check box.

Note: Always
include check box
with the label name.

*Source: page 8, Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications Third
Edition eBook*


When you are referring generally to a feature, turn off and turn on
are acceptable, but use select and clear to refer to check boxes that turn
the feature on and
off. You can say “click to select” if the action may not be obvious to your
audience.

& example: "On the Print tab, select the Comments and Hidden text check
boxes."

*Source: Page 121 (same book)*

.... so it seems the correct way of writing about it is: "Select the X
check box" and "Clear the X check box"




On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>wrote:

> MMS4 uses "disabled" only for unavailable menu commands.
>
> It doesn't directly address describing the state of a check box, but
> searching microsoft.com, they most commonly use checked / clear,
> though they're not consistent about it.
>
> On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 7:15 PM, Tony Chung <tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca> wrote:
> > Yes. The option is enabled or disabled. Don't call attention to the UI
> > control checked or unchecked status (according to MSTP).
> >
> > -Tony
> >
> > On Monday, January 13, 2014, Margaret Cekis wrote:
> >
> >> Helen Oboyle asked for a  Word to describe an empty check box
> >> "Our internal standard is to format our description of UI check boxes
> as:
> >> "If selected, blah.  If cleared, blah."
> >> CLEARED?
>
>
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-- 
Hannah L. Drake
Lead Technical Documentation Specialist
Formulatrix, Inc.

781-788-0228 x137 (office)
617-610-6456 (cell)
hannah.drake.formulatrix (skype)


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