Re: Press this, or just Press

Subject: Re: Press this, or just Press
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: "Milan Davidovic" <shl_ctf -at- yahoo -dot- ca>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 10:32:27 -0800

My approach generally is to have the callout say,

<Function Name> Button

and if the function name is not self explanatory,

<Function Name> Button
<Short description of what the button does>

I don't think think I've ever written for an audience
that could not be preassumed to understand that
when something is called a button you press it (or
if it's an image of a button in SW, click it) to make it work.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- From: "Milan Davidovic" <shl_ctf -at- yahoo -dot- ca>

This question is intended for tech writers who create
call outs that instruct the reader to press a button
(or some such) illustrated in the figure, and draw a
line with an arrow from the call out to the button in
question.

The question: in the call out, do you write "Press to
<do x>" or "Press this to <do x>". I'm curious as to
whether you regard the inclusion of "this" as
redundant.

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References:
Press this, or just Press: From: Milan Davidovic

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