Julie, a marketing and communications manager from Atlanta, Georgia, asked me about the formatting I used for commands, menus, and other items in my post Make Microsoft Find Passives. Many of us use technical terms in our writing–especially procedure writing–and I'm glad to provide tips.
Tip 1: If you write a lot of technical procedures, buy the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications. The manual has extensive examples and instructions on how to render URLs, key names, user action steps, dropdown boxes, etc. It also features screen shots with each element labeled, for example, Taskbar button, Address bar, Navigation button, Desktop, and Scroll bar.
Tip 2: For anything you want the user to click, use bold type, like this: Click Apply.
Tip 3: For menus, icon names, dialog box titles, labels, and options, use bold type. Example: On the Edit tab, select the Embed smart tags check box.
Tip 4: Use the same capitalization the user sees on the screen: Click Add New Hardware. Click Close all programs.
Tip 5: For the names of folders, do not use bold type: This file is located in the My Pictures folder.
Tip 6: Render URLs in lowercase letters: http://syntaxtraining.com
Tip 7: Use uppercase letters for the names of most keys: Use BACKSPACE to erase. Press DELETE.
Tip 8: Use bold type for anything the user should type: Type Visitor.
Create a style sheet for the procedures you write. That way, you won't need to repeatedly research or decide how to format an item. You will research and decide once, then simply check your style sheet.
For ideas about beginning a style sheet, see this article from my newsletter, Better Writing at Work.
Lynn
