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Subject:Re: Quote Marks From:Karen Gwynn/Datatel <Karen_Gwynn -at- DATATEL -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 11 Jan 1996 08:11:16 EDT
>>On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Tracy Boyington wrote:
>> So, while we're all here, let's come up with a good way to do this.
>> I've used italics for things the user types, small caps for keys
>> (such as ENTER or F3), bold for menu commands. I'm not saying
>> these are best; just that this is what I've used. And the punctuation
>> situation has always bothered me. What does everybody else do?
>George Allaman replied:
>I'm interested in the consensus on this one, too.
>I was taught - and I probably erroneously assumed it was the industry
>standard - that anything you read from the screen should be courier, anything
>you type in or click on should be bold. However, when indicating a single
>key, enclose caps in angle brackets, as in <ENTER> or <CTRL>+<F3>. I was told
>never to capitalize words except in these angle brackets. Italics I thought
>were reserved for introducing new terms.
I don't think that there is an industry standard for typographic conventions.
The important thing is that you are consistent within your publications and the
you provide your readers with explanations of what your conventions are. Also,
use good design principles (no bold, italic, underlines, please). As for the
punctuation, we keep the punctuation out of the specialized formats, unless it
is part of the command or other item being formatted.