
- About
- Structuring
- Designing
- Layout basics
- Design for your audience
- Proceed top down
- Use clear and simple design
- Use color with care
- Visually support skimming
- Guide the reader’s eye
- Align texts and objects to a design grid
- Use the golden ratio
- Trust your visual judgment
- Think ahead about printing
- Avoid amateurish formatting techniques
- Automate line breaks and page breaks
- Create styles semantically
- Create styles hierarchically
- Setting the type area
- Choosing fonts and spacing
- Recommended screen layouts
- Recommended page layouts
- Recommended table designs
- Recommended paragraph styles
- Recommended character styles
- Layout basics
- Writing
- Writing in general
- Writing topics
- Writing sections
- Writing sentences
- Make short sentences
- Put the main thing into the main clause
- Avoid parentheses and nested sentences
- Feel free to start sentences simply
- Feel free to end sentences simply
- Watch the order of words
- Watch the position of modifiers
- Feel free to repeat a word
- Use redundancies purposefully
- Add syntactic cues
- Be clear about what you’re referring to
- Use “then” with care
- Use “and” with care
- Don’t use “and/or”
- Don’t use “(s)”
- Writing words
- Use short, common words
- Watch for “…ed”
- Watch for “the … of” and for “of the”
- Watch for opening “It …” and “There …”
- Avoid abbreviations and acronyms
- Use technical terms carefully
- Always use the same terms
- Use contractions
- Avoid strings of nouns
- Avoid stacks of modifiers
- Avoid unnecessary qualification
- Use strong verbs
- Avoid gerunds that conceal a direct verb
- Avoid phrasal verbs
- Avoid idiomatic expressions
- Avoid buzzwords
- Avoid developer jargon
- Use fair language
- Blacklist: Overblown words
- Blacklist: Filler words
- FAQ: Spelling and punctuation
- FAQ: Grammar and word choice
- accurate / precise
- allow / enable
- Alphabetical order
- among / between
- amount / number
- and / as well as / plus
- assume / presume
- because / since / as
- big / great / large / little / small
- can / may / might / must / should
- check / control
- compare to / compare with
- comprise / compose / constitute
- content / contents
- continual / continuous
- cost / price / value / worth
- data / information
- definite / definitive
- different from / different than
- discreet / discrete
- distinct / distinctive
- do / make / perform
- each / every
- effective / efficient
- fewer / less
- figure / graphic / image / picture
- further / farther
- header / heading
- if / when / whether / whether or not
- if / in case
- If-clauses
- in / in to / into
- in / within
- index / indexes / indices
- it’s not / it isn’t
- lay / lie / lie
- less than / fewer than / under / below
- let / leave
- like / such as / as
- like / as if / as though
- more than / over / above
- many / much / a lot of / lots of
- many / various / different
- on / upon
- Possessives
- prior / previous
- regular / standard / default / preset
- safety / security
- single / singular
- that / which
- that / who / whom
- this / that / these / those
- use / utilize / employ
- what / which
- while / as / whereas / although
- want / wish / desire / need
- FAQ: Standard terms and phrases
- Hardware
- Software
- Versions, updates
- Setup
- Start, stop
- Assistants, documentation
- Windows, messages
- Controls: General rules
- Controls: Menus, Ribbons, Toolbars
- Controls: Tabs, Groups
- Controls: Buttons, Command links
- Controls: Check boxes, Options
- Controls: Fields, Boxes, Sliders
- Controls: Lists
- Controls: Taskbar, Status bars
- Mouse, touchscreen
- Scrolling, zooming
- Resizing, aligning
- Deleting, cutting, pasting
- Keys
- Characters
- Fonts
- Printing
- Disks, files
- Internet
- Errors
- Signal words
- Tool Guide
- Help authoring tools
- HTML authoring and conversion tools
- XML and DITA solutions
- DTP and classical text processing software
- PDF creation and manipulation tools
- Automation and postprocessing tools
- Utilities for embedding and testing help
- Screen capture tools
- Image editors
- Screencasting tools
- Animation and multimedia tools
- Language and terminology tools
- Translation and localization tools
- Creativity and productivity tools
- Web Guide
- User assistance, technical writing
- User experience, information design
- Standards, legal issues
- Technology, tools
- Templates, images, symbols, fonts
- Dictionaries, grammars, style guides
- Encyclopedias, reference works
- Forums, online communities
- Professional organizations
- Conferences, trade fairs
- Top feeds
- Book Guide
