Re: Making a Corporate Style Guide

Unfortunatley, I think you're thinking in terms of the layout of single
page documents or of web pages.

I'm talking more about the layout and content of large documents, and
about the content of web pages.

For example, my web page template (which I do have) will enforce the
table design that I've been using. (Please, no discussion about tables
--again-- right now! Wait until I'm done with these large documents!) 
and wizards, if I had them, would pull information directly from my
coworkers into the web pages. That's a good idea, and not one I
considered. I can see that method working for a fixed format. However,
it breaks down in two places:

1) I need to set the style for how text is decorated* within the new
content. For example, if we bold (embolden?) all of our software's
command names, then I have to say, "Please always bold the command
names so the customer's recognize them as such."  And there's no way I
can make a wizard intelligent enough to recognize command names AND
keep it up to date.

        I also need to set the style for how formatting represents the
organization of info within the doc. My template only controls the
formatting to a certain level-- for example, to the level of leaving a
big table cell within which to place the info. But that doesn't cover
telling the coworker to indent the text *just so*. I could see a Big
Brother-type Wizard that keeps asking, "What's the purpose of your next
paragraph? Here, let me format it for you." But that would drive any
human crazy! Ugh.

2) When it comes time for me or someone else to change the corporate
style (hopefully not for a long time), or even merely to edit it,
wizards would be more difficult to edit and change than a bunch of text
rules within a guide book. (Or so I think, never having programmed a
wizard before.)


...and that goes doubly so for big text documents. Word templates just
don't carry you for 300+ pages -- after they've replaced the template
content, people just like to write however they want.


You're probably asking yourself, why does he want to make so many
RULES?? Well, I'm not a dictator. Okay, I am, but not a heavy-handed,
evil dictator. I'm just trying to avoid the mistakes of the past and
create technical manuals and marketing materials that have a consistent
look and feel to them. Years ago, the tech manuals contained a dozen
different styles for normal text.  !!  The style for indenting and
emphasizing lists changed from section to section!  I figure that if I
make some rules, people will have a guide for writing consistently. 

I can't force them to do so, but I can make it possible for anyone who
wants to try. 

Thanks for the ideas!
complex


*text decoration?  Oh, god, i'm thinking in CSS!


--- "Captain F.M. O'Lary" <ctfuzzy(at)canopy.net> wrote:
> At 12:04 PM 11/15/01 , Complex wrote:
> >I would like to make some clear and hard rules for how my coworkers
> >should capitalize, bold, and otherwise format command names, product
> >names, and other special pieces of text. Also, for how they should
> >format different kinds of lists and text in general. My goal is for
> the
> >company to be able to maintain a consistent style even without me.
> >(Hey, I'm aware of my own mortality. :-)
> 
> 
<snip>
> 
> Take a que from Mr. Gates:
> 
> Templates and Wizards. In MS Office you have to make an effort to
> ~not~
> have every page look the same !!
> 
<snip>

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