[ZDP] Outline of style guide

Rik Hoekstra hoekstra@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 23:33:15 +0100


Date sent:      	Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:13:21 -0600
From:           	Ute Methner <ute@idirect.com>
To:             	zdp@zope.org
Subject:        	[ZDP] Outline of style guide

> Hello all.
> Here is the first draft of the style guide. If you have any comments,
> please let me know.
> 
> Ute
> ute@idirect.com
> 

Ute,

This is an excellent outline of a styleguide. Obviously it is 
modelled after a styleguide for printed matter and that will do for 
most of the cases of electronic writing, but it does not cover 
everything. I understand making the styleguide will be a _lot_ of 
work, but you asked for comments yourself...

A few points:
- even if the paper and electronic version of a publication are 
single sourced, it is not necessarily so that they are exact copies. 
Even if text and graphics are the same, presenting them on different 
media make them different anyway.
It would be nice to have a set of guidelines for the ways they should 
be the same and the ways they should be related (I know this is no 
simple issue, I'll be glad to help thinking). Some points:

- printed pages may be (much) longer than electronic pages
- hyperlinking makes referencing different. Referencing online 
resources from paper and from electronic versions is different. 
- this is even more so if you consider including other parts in your 
text, which is possible in XML, but also in a set of WWW pages (this 
also bears upon legal matters)
- electronic indexes probably require a different approach than paper 
indexes

I probably forgot other things.

Rik

> ......................
> Zbook style guide
> 
> 1.	About this guide
> 	
> 	Scope
> 	Audience
> 	Contributions
> 
> 2.	Writing references
> 
> 3.	Writing style considerations
> 
> 	Headings
> 	International audience
> 	Lists
> 	Perspective
> 	Pronouns
> 	Voice
> 4.	Information structure
> 
> 		Structure of hardcopy
> 			Example of a chapter
> 		Structure of online copy
> 			Example of a chapter
> 
> 
> 5.	Usage
> 
> 	Abbreviations
> 	Acronyms
> 	Capitalization
> 	Contractions
> 	Dash, hyphen, etc.
> 	Dates
> 	Headings
> 	Spelling
> 	Trademarks
> 	Typefaces
> 		Script typeface
> 		Heading typeface
> 		Text typeface
> 		Bold
> 		Italics
> 		Underline
> 	References
> 		When and where to reference
> 			Example of a reference list
> 
> 6.	Visuals
> 	
> 	General guidelines
> 		Tables
> 		Graphic files
> 		Other visuals
> 
> 7.	Indexing
> 		Guidelines for indexing
> 			Examples of an index
> 
> 8.	Legal Information
> 
> _______________________________________________
> ZDP maillist  -  ZDP@zope.org
> http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zdp