Typographic conventions are another way we communicate important information to the reader graphically. For example, in this guidebook we have been using italics for terms that we are introducing for the first time. This is a standard typographic convention that most readers are already familiar with.
In this section, we’ll look at:
Times Roman
Helvetica
There are two main classes of typefaces: serif typefaces and sans serif typefaces. Most typefaces clearly belong in one class or the other. Serifs are the small extensions at the ends of letters and are widely believed to make them more legible, and therefore the text faster to read.
While there are hundreds of typefaces to choose from, most manuals use only two typefaces: a serif typeface, such as Times Roman, for the text, and a sans serif typeface, such as Helvetica, for headings. This guidebook uses these typefaces in this way.
The normal type size for text is from 10pt to 12pt. This is the size we are most used to reading, and therefore we read it the fastest. If you are writing for the visually challenged, younger readers, or where the text may be read at a distance, you may need to increase the type size of the text to 13pt or 14pt. Type smaller than 10pt is much harder to read and noticeably slows down readers.
Some older manuals used all UPPER CASE HEADINGS. This was often necessary when using typewriters because of the lack of other possible heading attributes. All upper case letters, however, slow reading speed because of the loss of characteristic word shapes—words in mixed case have a shape which aids in their recognition. Avoid using all upper case in a manual, except for short acronyms.
Use bolding, italics and underlining sparingly—they slow reading speed. Don’t use them to emphasize parts of the text. If something is very important, give it a separate heading, or put it in a text box.
Bolding - normally used as paragraph tags to help the introductory keywords stand out from the text.
Italics - normally used to distinguish:
Underlining - commonly used when working with typewriters, but virtually never seen in manuals.
SMALL CAPS - if acronyms and abbreviations are set in full capital letters like this—SPCA—they are too dominant. Rather, it’s better to put them in small caps like this—SPCA (usually 2pts smaller than the text).
Courier Bold – used in computer end-user manuals to identify words that can be read from the computer monitor.
<Carets> – one of several possible ways of identifying keys on the keyboard, such as "Press the <Enter> key."
Leave the line spacing set at 1.0 on your word processor. This is the setting that is considered to be the most readable. Increasing line spacing, or leading, will give the text a more spacious or relaxed look, and is often used in magazine and book publishing. Decreasing the line spacing will make the text more difficult to read.
Use extra line spacing to separate paragraphs. Avoid indenting the first line of a paragraph—this convention is not commonly used in manuals.
Additional line spacing is often used to set off headings from the text above them.
Justification refers to how the lines of text line up at the left and right margins. All text is left justified—all lines start at the left margin. But text can also be fully justified—lines can line up at the right margin as well. Magazines and newspapers are almost always fully justified, but manuals are usually not.
Fully justifying text often results in awkward word spacing, which affects reading speed. Magazines and newspapers can often avoid some of these problems by hyphenating words, or by having their sophisticated typesetting equipment automatically kern words on a line (kerning refers to adjusting the letter spacing of words). Since most word processors can’t kern in the same way, and hyphenating words slows reading speed, avoid fully justifying text.
Page break refers to where you end a page of text. The standard rule is never to leave a single line of text at either the bottom (an orphan) or the top (a widow) of a page. Most word processors have a widow and orphan protect feature which automatically guards against single lines.However, with manuals that typically use lots of headings, bullet lists, and other methods of presentation, this feature doesn’t work well.
Once the text is finalized, carefully go through the entire manual, starting at the beginning, and decide where the pages should break. Use your word processor’s automatic features, such as block protect and conditional end-of-page settings to control page breaks. If you must introduce a page break manually, use a hard page break.
Follow these guidelines for page breaks:
Use a single space to separate the end of one sentence from the beginning of the next. When typewriters were used, authors used two spaces to get the required space. Now, word processors automatically put in the extra space at the end of sentences. Pressing the space bar twice will result in twice the required spacing.
