I'd look at Apple documents and IBM documents to see some good examples. Both are online.
Joel On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 4:30 PM, <Syed.Hosain at aeris.net> wrote: > Hi, all. > > > > This is perhaps a bit of a vague set of questions, but I am interested > in improving the look of our manuals and specifications documentation > and would like to see what others are doing in this regard. > > > > 1. Specifically, I am working on various manuals for our software API's > as well as general technical specifications. > > > > 2. These tend to be reasonably dry documents, where I have used > numbering for chapter and section titles so people can refer to them by > those numbers when talking internally here, as well as when we get > questions from our customers. > > > > 3. The target audience for most of these documents are engineers > (software and hardware) and technical managers and the like. No consumer > docs, or marketing folks or web page formats, etc. > > > > 4. At the present time, my chapter and title fonts are Arial (various > sizes depending on the section and subsection level) and my body font is > Palatino Linotype in 11 point. > > > > 5. Pretty much in black text most everywhere, except where I use Red > italic font in a sidehead to make certain short one-to-two sentence > notes (also in italic, but in black) stand out right next to the > sidehead word. These are important notes to not overlook by the reader. > > > > My goal is to improve legibility. > > > > 1. Are there any sample documents (at any site) that people could point > me to as ones that they liked a lot for (a) legibility and (b) > readability for such documents? > > > > 2. Do people think that a Sans Serif font improves legibility for body > text? I have seen some recent manual examples using "Calibri" in a 10 > point size (that I wasn't sure that I particularly liked, but if it > makes things easier to read, then I'd be willing to try it). > > > > 3. What about color? Like in Section and chapter titles? > > > > 4. In many places in my manuals, I have numbers (usually enclosed in > quotes to designate strings) that I show in a fixed-width font (using > "Consulas" in 11 point), even when in paragraphs that have body text in > Palatino. I have experimented with making these a fairly Dark Blue > color, and also tried bold (in black), to make them stand out a bit > more. This seems to work reasonably well, but I am not sure that I want > to get too much color in these manuals and specifications just yet, so I > have not actually sent anything out yet! > > > > Finally ... > > > > 1. I am looking to see if I can find a few people to look at two PDF > extracts (less than 10 or 20 pages) from two of my > manuals/specifications to get some critiques along the above lines - > look and feel criticism only (the words and content are a different > thing entirely J!). Any volunteers who could take a bit of time for > this? Thanks in advance! > > > > Regards, > > > > Z > > _______________________________________________ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as eleysium at gmail.com. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/eleysium%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. >
