Re: Bold to highlight files and paths?

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- net -dot- au>]

Christopher asks:

> Does anybody use bold to highlight file names and file paths in your
> documentation (whether it be print, PDF, or online)?  Why... or why not?

"Does anybody"? Seems like a strange question in view
of the wealth of published examples. Yes, many do.

The reasons for doing it are:

a) to highlight the literal string that the user is supposed
to look for in the interface; and

b) to avoid the need to wrap quoted strings in quote marks,
which create more problems than they solve.

A good reason for not doing it, or for doing it in some
cases and not others, is that pages can quickly end up 
looking like an explosion at the type foundry. Using boldface
is supposed to highlight things, but if too many things
are highlighted, it's worse than nothing being highlighted.

Sometimes more subtle visual cues, such as initial caps 
for screen literals (as we used to call them in the old
green-screen days) are a more sedate solution.

-- 
Michael West
Melbourne



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