Technical Writers’ Companion

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Recommended character styles

Character styles format single words or phrases. They determine the used typeface and color.

Professional authoring tools also allow you to control automatic hyphenation and line breaks in the word or phrase to which a particular character style has been applied.

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General recommendations

When setting up character styles:

▪Create as few character styles as possible. Users aren’t able to distinguish among more than 3 or 4 distinct visual styles (siehe auch Use clear and simple design).

▪Create styles only for tagging particular types of information (siehe Create styles semantically).

▪When possible, define styles that adhere to general conventions so that readers don’t have to learn a new meaning of a known style. For example, it’s most common to use:

▪bold font style for controls

▪underlined text for hyperlinks

▪italic font style for special terms and for emphasis

When applying character styles:

▪Don’t include surrounding spaces and punctuation.

▪Don’t use character styles in headings and subheadings.

Overview of recommended styles

The basic character styles needed for every user assistance document are:

Purpose	Suggested style name	Suggested keyboard shortcut
To highlight the name of the documented product and to disable automatic hyphenation for the product name (optional). For details, see: Product name character style	cp_product	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[p]
To highlight all user interface and interaction elements, such as window titles, menu items, buttons, keys, levers, and so on. For details, see: Element character style	ce_element	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[e]
To mark parameters, such as parameters of function calls, formulas, and so on. For details, see: Parameter character style	ca_parameter	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[a]
To mark product-specific technical terms. For details, see: Term character style	ct_term	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[t]
To emphasize words and expressions if this is necessary to avoid confusion. For details, see: Emphasis character style	cm_emphasis	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[m]
To highlight important keywords that help readers to skim the text (optional). For details, see: Strong character style	cs_strong	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[s]
To mark input that users must type. For details, see: User input character style	ci_input	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[i]
To mark quotes of source code and configuration files. For details, see: Code character style	cc_code	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[c]
To mark links / cross-references to other topics within the document as well as links to external web sites and documents. For details, see: Link character styles	cl_link	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[l]

(DE)

Wenn Sie lieber mit deutschen Bezeichnungen arbeiten, können Sie z. B. die folgenden Formatnamen und Tastenkürzel verwenden:

Zweck	Vorschlag für Formatnamen	Vorschlag für Tastenkürzel
Um den Namen des beschriebenen Produkts hervorzuheben sowie um die automatische Silbentrennung für den Produktnamen zu deaktivieren (optional) Details siehe: Product name character style	zp_produkt	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[p]
Um alle Schnittstellen- und Bedienelemente zu kennzeichnen, wie Fenstertitel, Menüpunkte, Schaltflächen, Knöpfe, Bedienhebel usw. Details siehe: Element character style	ze_element	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[e]
Um Parameter zu kennzeichnen, z. B. Parameter für Funktionsaufrufe, Formeln usw. Details siehe: Parameter character style	za_parameter	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[a]
Um produktspezifische Fachbegriffe zu kennzeichnen Details siehe: Term character style	zi_begriff	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[i]
Um Wörter und Ausdrücke hervorzuheben, wenn diese Hervorhebung Missverständnissen vorbeugen kann Details siehe: Emphasis character style	zb_betonung	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[b]
Um wichtige Schlüsselwörter hervorzuheben, die den Lesern helfen, den Text schnell zu überfliegen (optional) Details siehe: Strong character style	zh_hervorhebung	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[h]
Zur Kennzeichnung von Benutzereingaben über die Tastatur Details siehe: User input character style	zg_eingabe	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[g]
Zur Kennzeichnung von Quellcode-Zitaten und Zitaten aus Konfigurationsdateien Details siehe: Code character style	zc_code	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[c]
Zur Kennzeichnung von Links / Querverweisen zu anderen Themen innerhalb desselben Dokuments, zu externen Webseiten oder externen Dokumenten Details siehe: Link character styles	zl_link	[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[l]

Verwandte Regeln

Automate line breaks and page breaks

Create styles semantically

Create styles hierarchically

Use color with care

Think ahead about printing

Choosing fonts and spacing