Style and Terminology

The best resource for style and terminology is the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications. Before attempting any authoring, please take a few minutes to review in particular the sections on Documenting the User Interface, which includes the correct names for all the elements of windows and dialog boxes, and the section on punctuation.

Click here for some of the most frequently used terms in technical documentation.

Style

In Capensys courseware, we follow the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, with the following exceptions: MORE TO COME?

Quotation marks

Use single quotation marks in text boxes, not double.

The instruction in the text box in the left column should be in bold, with the name of the element, such as a button or tab, in single quotation marks. For example:

To create a table, the first step is to click the 'Insert' tab.

The instruction in the failure caption and any other call-out captions should have the name of the element in bold type, with no quotation marks. For example:

Click the Insert tab

Place closing quotation marks outside commas and periods. For other closing punctuation, placement of the closing quotation mark depends on whether the punctuation is part of the material being quoted.

The following link is for an article on Office 2007 terminology.

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6180692.html

CorrectTerminology