What's covered?This topic describes the typographical and other rules that will be followed by CedarOpenAccounts authors to ensure a consistent non-personalised appearance. |
Cedar style sheets (css) are designed so that manual line spacing will not normally be required before or after any headings or paragraphs. From time to time, appearance will dictate the need for a manual line space and this is at the author's discretion.
Please always preview the document if manual line spaces are added as the appearance is different in the WYSIWYG editor.
The following table describes the rules that apply to bulleted and numbered lists.
|
Rule for... |
Guideline |
|
Introducing lists |
Introduce the list with a sentence ending with a colon. |
|
Capitalising list items |
Begin each item with a capital letter |
|
Ending entries with a full stop |
End each entry with a full stop if all items:
|
|
Not ending entries with a full stop |
Do not end each entry with a full stop:
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Text in italics rarely looks good on screen. For this reason its use is to be avoided as much as possible. It is accepted that occasionally its use cannot be avoided and this is left to the author's discretion.
The following guidelines are taken from the Microsoft Manual of Style and are listed in this guide to avoid common problems.
Follow these general guidelines:
In text, common nouns are generally lowercase and proper nouns are always capitalised (a royal palace, Buckingham Palace).
Follow the capitalisation rules or conventions of software or a specific product.
Never use all uppercase letters for emphasis.
Use Title Case for headings, screen titles and field names. Also use title case for "jargon" such as Standard Pricing.
Within this context, the following guidelines from the Microsoft Manual of Style are repeated to avoid common problems.
Capitalise all nouns, verbs (including is and other forms of be), adverbs (including than and when, adjectives (including this and that) and pronouns (including its).
Capitalise prepositions that are part of a verb phrase (Backing Up Your Hard Disk).
Do not capitalise articles (a, an, the) unless one is the first word.
Do not capitalise coordinate conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or).
Do not capitalise prepositions of four or fewer letters (with).
Do not capitalise to in an infinitive phrase (How to Format Your Hard Disk).
Most of the style sheet fonts are Verdana with Comic Sans bold used for Heading 4. In general, Verdana is to be used exclusively for all content. If other fonts are required, they must be part of the standard Microsoft Office installation to ensure that virtually all users will have the appropriate fonts installed.
Use bold type for Command Buttons.
As described more fully in the previous section, use Title Case for headings, screen titles and field names. Also use title case for "jargon" such as Standard Pricing.
Fowler's Modern English Usage indicates that hyphenation has no fixed rules and that its use is diminishing. Where the older form presents no problems of form or pronunciation, modern practice is to use a single compound word. For example, eardrum rather than ear-drum.
The following rules are taken from the Microsoft Manual of Style and are listed here to avoid common problems.
Hyphenate two or more words that precede and modify a noun as a unit if confusion might result. (built-in drive, read-only memory).
Hyphenate two words that precede and modify a noun if one of the words is a past or present participle (copy-protected disk, free-moving graphics).
Hyphenate two words that precede and modify a noun as a unit if the two modifiers are a number or single letter and a noun or participle. (80-column text card, eight-sided polygon, 16-bit bus).
In general, use the Microsoft Manual of Style guidelines for individual prefixes. The general rule is not to hyphenate words beginning with a prefix such as pre unless the result would be confusing or the prefix is followed by a proper noun.
This rule has not been applied consistently within the eFinancials software. Within other Cedar documentation, the decision has been to follow whatever has been used most frequently in eFinancials. The term "sub-ledger" will therefore be hyphenated and the opportunity to tidy up should be taken when editing any topic.
In general, spell key names as they appear in the following examples, whether the name appears in text or in a procedure.
BACKSPACE
CTRL
DELETE
ENTER
ESC
F1–F12
SHIFT
SPACEBAR [precede with the except in key combinations or key sequences]
TAB [use the and key except in key combinations or key sequences]
The following table describes guidelines for use of keys in text.
|
Guideline |
Example |
|
When telling a user to press a key |
|
|
Use the and key the first time the key is referred to in a sequence. |
Press the Y key. Press the ENTER key. |
|
Thereafter the and key can be omitted. |
Press Y. Press ENTER. |
|
Use a plus sign, to indicate key combinations such as shortcut keys and access keys. There should not be any space between the key names and the plus sign. |
ALT+TAB In this example, the user would press and hold down ALT and then press TAB. |
|
When telling a user to enter a key |
|
|
Use bold lowercase italics, unless an uppercase letter is required. |
Enter y |
Avoid abbreviations based on Latin. See the following examples.
|
Abbreviation |
Use Instead |
|
e.g. |
For example |
|
i.e. |
That is |
These words are often commonly interposed.
|
Word |
Usage |
|
That |
Introduces essential information, for example: The pen that Cedar gave me is made of plastic. The phrase "that Cedar gave me" is essential to knowing which pen is made of plastic. |
|
Which |
Introduces non-essential information, for example: This pen, which Cedar gave me, is made of plastic. The phrase "This pen" defines the pen that is being referred to. The fact that Cedar gave the pen is non-essential to the statement being made. |
Usually a comma precedes "which". The Microsoft Grammar Check feature applies this rule correctly.
Generally The Microsoft Style Guide provides common sense guidance. On the matter of check boxes though I think their decision could still confuse some users. Microsoft advise using the terms Select the check box and Clear the check box. I suspect some users might feel that each time you click the check box, you are selecting it. For that reason I prefer to use the terms Tick the check box and Clear the check box, they are beyond doubt.
In a similar way, I think the clearest instruction here is Click the required option.