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Subject:Re: Commands Beginning a Sentence From:"Rollings, Gill" <WGILLR -at- WOK-MSMAIL-GW -dot- ISL -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 26 Oct 1994 09:42:00 PDT
Rob Sweitzer asked what to do with "commands that must be entered in all
lower case ... when they appear at the beginning of a sentence and in
headings". I have adopted the tactic of using one font for my general text
(and making it bold for field names and italic for an example of the text
the user would type in a field) and a different font for the commands.
A different font makes the word(s) in question stand out. Therefore, even
if there appears to be a leading capital missing, the fact that the font has
changed should alert the reader. Additional recommendation: have a note
about use of fonts and styles right at the beginning of the book, with a
small table showing examples. Not everyone will read it, but some of them
might go back to it when they start to see a pattern emerging...
If anyone's remotely interested, I use Arial for main text and Courier New
for the commands. The Courier is not only a different shape, it also comes
out as a finer font - by which I mean that the thickness of the characters
is less on the printed page, if you see what I mean.
Gill Rollings, Technical Writer, Internet Systems Ltd
gill -dot- rollings -at- isl -dot- com
