Techcommunicators.com | WRM Home | Writing Styleguide | Dictionary of Plain English | Feedback | Glossary | Index
 

8   Writing and Production Software

Styles and Templates

Templates and styles are two important features of modern word processors. If you are fuzzy on what these features are for, look them up in your word processor manual or help system. They are time-saving features—don’t try to produce anything longer than a letter without using them. For manual writing, they are essential.

Styles

Before contemporary word processors started using styles, coding was applied directly within the document file to control every aspect of the page format, such as typeface, type size, and line spacing. If, for example, you wanted a heading to be 14 point Arial Italic, you had to apply codes for Arial, italic, and 14 point directly to the heading. And if you wanted extra spacing between the heading and the text that followed, you inserted a spacing code. Of course, at the end of the heading, you had to change all the codes back to those for normal text. Formatting was a time-consuming process because you had to repeat all this work each time you used that heading level.

If you later wanted to change the heading, let’s say to 15 point Arial Black, you had to search for and remove all of the format codes and then apply new codes—also a time-consuming process.

Figure 8-2: Microsoft Word's dialogue box for creating or modifying styles

Figure 8-2: Microsoft Word’s dialogue box for creating or modifying styles

Document format is now controlled through the use of styles (see Figure 8-2). Instead of applying format codes directly to elements of the text, such as headings, we use them to define a style. We then apply that style to all instances of that heading level in our document. To apply the style, just place the insertion bar on the heading, then select the appropriate style from the pull-down list of styles. All of the format codes defined in the style will be applied automatically to the heading. Since you define the style only once, and applying it is easy, formatting goes much faster.

Another advantage of styles is the ability to quickly make global changes to a document. If you decide to change the typeface used in a heading level, you simply change it once in the style definition—when it prints out, the new typeface will appear wherever you’ve used that style.

Expert word processors, particularly those with experience handling large documents, will create numerous special styles to control the format of virtually every element of their document. The template supplied with this guidebook uses more than 10 styles. For a list of the styles and what they are designed for, see Using the Manual Templates.

If you need an online version of the manual as well, you may be able to completely change the document format for online display by simply changing the style definitions—a much faster job than searching for and replacing directly applied format codes.

Templates

A template is a customized file used when creating documents of a specific type. Most word processors come with a variety of templates for common documents, such as invoices, memos, letters, and fax cover sheets. More complicated templates can be created for complex documents, such as manuals, or you can create your own.

Templates can contain the following:

  • page setup information, such as page size and margins
  • headers and footers
  • standard headings, such as “Introduction”
  • a library of styles
  • customized tool bars

A well-thought-out and carefully designed template can greatly reduce the time needed to format a manual. During the planning stage, as you develop the prototype, start building your template. Once you’ve got approval of the prototype, your template should be ready.

Provide a copy of the template to everyone writing text and encourage them to use it. When they start a new section, they’ll need to attach the template to the text file, then start using the styles provided. Templates are normally kept in a separate template folder and should be locked so that they can’t be accidentally modified or overwritten.

Templates are also used by online authoring software to control how information will display on the monitor. They work the same way as word processor templates. Some authoring tools allow you to map between the word processor template, which controls the print document, and the online template, which controls the online document, allowing you to quickly reformat a document for online display.