TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Conventions From:henry -at- netlabs -dot- com (Henry Polard) To:henry -at- netcom -dot- com Date:Fri, 3 Sep 93 11:28:31 PDT
Folks -
I'm trying to find a a set of conventionss for represent UNIX commands,
filenames, and directory names. These are usually described in a table
at the beginning of a book that looks something like this:
Typographical Conventions
Monospace type Program code,, commands, file names, and directories.
Boldface monospace Program code or text you type as it appears
type in examples.
Italic type Variable names.
(proportional)
Monospace Entries for which you need to substitute an
Boldface appropriate value depending on your specific
italic type installation or configuration, for example,
path.
I and other writers where I work have various
opinions on what the conventions should be, but none (including mine)
are based on recognized principles of readability (I, being a
professional, of course know what is readable :-)) or on recognized
standards in the UNIX world (I do not know of any _one_ standard).
Could anyone suggest a set of typographical conventions that are based
on readability studies or widely-used conventions in the UNIX world?
I would appreciate citations of studies or materials relating to conventions.
Henry Polard || Standards are great - there are so many to chose from!