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John Patterson asked, among other style questions:
>(2) What information is most useful in headers? Is it useful to put
the
>title of a manual in the header?
A seminar by Manuals Corporation of America, way back in the
Eighties, taught me that the header outer corner of the page is
the most valuable real estate on the page. The second-most-valuable
real estate is the footer outer corner. Reserve these corners for
navigation purposes, to guide the reader, who is flipping or
fanning through the book. Note that this ancient bit of data
applies only to the hardcopy media.
When unfettered by an existing corporate style, I follow this
old wisdom and put a lower-level heading, the topic descriptor
for the page or section, on the heading outer corner. I have
used two-line headers, to give two levels of headings, one above
the other, on the outer corner.
Chapter titles can go in the center or inner side of the header.
I leave the page number (ChapNum-PageNum) on the footer
outer corner. In most of my books, readers get to info by using
the index or TOC, so they home in on the target page number.
I don't like to use Book titles in the header nor footer- they are
a waste of navigational aid space. Often a bigger company feels
they have to slap the title and company name on every page.
There seems to be an idea that this "protects" their property. In
a company with a large book set, there is often the idea that
having the book title on the page will come in handy when a user
sends in a photocopied page with *comments.* Heh.
That happens once per decade.
I like to put the document number instead of the long-winded
title, and use the inner footer corner for that. I prefer not to
give the document revision level in the footer, simply because
it has to be updated every edition.
Use the outer corners of the page to guide the user to the
desired info.
Your mileage might vary, depending on audience usage.
Dick Dimock Purveyor of Personal Opinions
NCR Corporation Owner of NCR Style Guide which
often clashes** with my opinions
**In case of opinion clash, NCR wins.
El Segundo, CA Stylish and unclashing city
by the Blue Pacific.
