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As my department begins to standardize its format for operator manuals, I
have been tasked with developing a style guide for our operator manuals,
which are created using FrameMaker 6.0. I have not worked with style guides
up until now, and am currently interested in how I should best approach this
task, as well as the general scope of a style guide.
Does anybody have any good resources (web sites, books, sample style guides,
etc...) regarding style guides? Some of the questions I'm hoping to answer
include:
* Generally speaking, how large of a document are style guides?
* What is the scope? What topics need to be addressed in order
for a style guide to properly function?
* What Frame specific information needs to be included? I would
assume I'd want to address the paragraph/character tags, master
pages, etc.., but should I address any plug-ins we use, any
tricks we've found, resources we use such as listservs, etc..?
<More Background Information>I work for a large medical diagnostic company
that was recently sold to another company. The company that bought us has a
style guide (in French) for operator manuals created in Word, but they are
already beginning to look to us for direction regarding operator manuals.
They are in the process of switching to FrameMaker and realize the operator
manuals they currently produce need some work. We figure it makes sense to
start working towards a style guide we can present to them.</More Background
Information>
Anyway, I'd greatly appreciate any advice/resources that anyone can offer.
Thanks,
John Balchunas
Technical Writer I, Labeling and Packaging Development
bioMérieux Inc.
100 Akzo Avenue
Durham, NC 27712
tel. 919.620.2053
fax: 919.620.4170
email: jbalchunas -at- orgtek -dot- com <mailto:jbalchunas -at- orgtek -dot- com>
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