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Subject:Bold, Italics, etc. From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- AXIONET -dot- COM> Date:Sun, 2 Nov 1997 21:48:22 -0500
John Prince <prince1 -at- WEBTV -dot- NET> wrote:
>Now, I do have a question about dialog boxes. Do you guys >write the name of a dialog box in bold or italics? Or do you >simply write it in plain text? I prefer to write them in >bold, BUT...sometimes when you have other words in bold >(actions) and you write the dialog boxes in bold, in the same >sentence, it's seems a bit too much.
That's the trouble with bold weights - they can call so much attention
to themselves that they overwhelm everything else on the page. The
result is not only an aesthetic disaster, but less readability.
I prefer not to use bold very often. Often, serifs are dark enough in
regular or demi-bold weights. And, when they might be used in the text,
I prefer other alternatives, including:
a.) small caps
b.) the sans serif I use for the heading at a size compatible with the
serif body text
c.) nothing at all
The last alternative is the one I currently favor. Typing "The List
Detail dialogue box opens" gets a little tedious, but feedback suggests
that customers prefer it to having to remember which typographical
convention refers to which features.
