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> I have a quick question. A client has just informed our group that the
> template designed for his suite of documents isn't warm and fuzzy enough
> for his end users (I am not kidding). He has objections to Ariel, New
> Times Roman, Helvetica, and Garamond. I checked in the archives and
> couldn't find any references to warm fonts. :) Does anyone have any
> ideas/suggestions? The final delivery will be in Word 97 and PDF
> formats.
Oh brother...
I think STC should start giving away Darwin-style awards for the most
inane use of a tech writer's time. All incidents of obsessing over fonts
should be instantly entered into this contest. The winner gets a lifetime
supply of time management binders so they can divert their time to
something even more absurd, like making lists of tasks that never get
completed.
Might I suggest that you look at the overall design of the doc, vs. fonts.
If you're boss wants friendlier docs, try using more graphics, more icons,
and less acres of dull, boring, instructions. Also, and this is a person
pet peeve of mine, try "softening the edges" of your text. By that I mean,
don't just drop dry instructions on the reader. Lead them slowly through
concepts. Blunt the edges of each section with introduction material and
more contextual descriptions. This requires actual writing skill and
brain-resources (as opposed to font fondling) so be prepared to fire up
them ol' axons.
Of course, I have no idea what your docs look like or what your boss is
like - so pretty much anything I say is meaningless.
Why am I here?
Andrew Plato
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