Visual Texts: Format and the Evolution of English Accounting Texts, 1100-1700    

Emphasis on page design, as an aid to visual accessibility, did not receive attention in modern technical writing until the 1970s. However, accounting documents and instructional texts utilized format and document design strategies as early as the twelfth century to enhance the organization of quantitative data and linear bookkeeping entries. Format in text was used to reflect the arrangement used in oral accounting practices and to produce uniform documents. Thus, format was integral to the rise of pragmatic literacy of the commercial reader. During the Renaissance, these early format strategies received impetus from Ramist method. The result was design strategies that attempted to capture the rigid principles of organization fundamental to commercial accounting. These early accounting documents also illustrate the plain style that would become the focus of the later decades of the seventeenth century. Clarity in language paralleled clarity in page design for the sole purpose of eliminating ambiguity on the page and on the sentence level. Plain style was thus nurtured by financial forces long before the advent of natural science.

Tebeaux, Elizabeth. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>History

WebWorks Publisher: Can It Convert You?  

Discusses Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher, a software package that allows single-sourcing from Adobe FrameMaker to online documents. For a more advanced discussion of WebWorks, see Robert R. Desprez's article 'WebWorks Publisher: Jumping into the Details,' also in the September/October 2001 issue of Intercom.

Beren, Wendy G. Intercom (2001). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

What We Can Learn About Document Design From A Study of the Visual Convergence of the News Media  

Information presentation trends that traverse media boundaries point to a visual convergence among print, television, and the web. Examination of how this process takes place through “remediation” in the news media provides insight into the broader media and cultural context in which technical documentation resides. Creating new knowledge for technical communicators who are beyond an elementary understanding of document design requires interdisciplinary research that investigates how usability is redefined in an age of visual convergence.

Cooke, Lynne. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

What's Next for Text?

All text is digital in origin. Fixed print has become printout, one substrate of expression for a preexisting digital code. And it is no longer the only game in town. Other, digital, displays–--regular cathode ray tube computer screens, liquid crystal display flat screens, book-sized electronic display devices, digital screen projectors, heads-up displays, goggles, helmets, immersive virtual reality environments–--now compete with the printed page for final display. These digital displays can recreate the full electronic expressive space, a three-dimensional, dynamic world, as the flat, fixed world of print cannot. Fixity stands at the center of Beatrice Warde's brave declaration: 'not to perish on waves of sound, not to vary with the writer's hand, but fixed in time.' That fixity comes unglued in the diversity of display devices in which text can now become manifest. Text will find its future as the various ways we can now display it compete for the privilege.

Lanham, Richard A. Education Communication and Information (2003). Design>Document Design>Online

When Good Color Goes Bad

Color expert Mike Davis of Colorprep knows what to do when color goes wrong... and many times it's the photographer or designer's fault!

Davis, Mike. Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Color

Whitespace

Sometimes, as in web design, it's difficult to add whitespace because of content requirements. Newspapers often deal with this by setting their body content in a light typeface with plenty of whitespace within and around the characters.

Boulton, Mark. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Document Design

Why Do All the Page Numbers in my Word 2002 Document Display as 0?

Word 2002 will display 0 for all page numbers in headers or footers, and all page numbers in a Table of Contents, in the following circumstances.

Kelly, Shauna. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word

Why Does the Appearance (or Layout) of My Document Change When I Open it on a Different Machine?

Because Word is a WYSIWYG application, it will always try to represent on screen the result you will get if you print on the printer that is selected as the default. Changing printer drivers will almost always change the layout at least slightly and sometimes radically. There are a number of ways to minimize the changes.

Barnhill, Suzanne. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Document Design>Microsoft Word

Why Technical Communicators and Usability?

Why technical communicators and usability? Both writers and software development managers have asked me that question. In both cases, it springs from a narrow view of communicators as 'just writers.' It is a point of view that fails to see the many activities, from learning the subject matter to organizing the information or creating good document design, that are hidden behind that final task of writing the words.

Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Usability SIG (2000). Articles>TC>Document Design>Usability

WidemanOne Adobe FrameMaker Topics

For all that the most central concept in FrameMaker is the Frame, the existing documentation is thoroughly foggy regarding the precise nature of the Frame types and the relationships amongst them. Here is a first pass at rectifying that shortcoming.

Wideman, Graham. WidemanOne (2001). Resources>Software>Document Design>Adobe FrameMaker

Word Spacing

When setting type, most of us are very conscious of type style, size, width and line spacing. Many of us also pay attention to letter spacing and kerning, even if we’re not as confident in these areas. But word spacing--the space between words--is probably the most neglected of typographic attributes. This seemingly small detail plays an important role in the color, texture and readability of your type.

Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design

Word Spacing Keyboard Shortcut  

Ever been copyfitting and wished there was a quick way to kern word spacing but leave letterspacing alone? There is.

Cole, Tim. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Working with Colour in InDesign CS

Explains the use of the Colour Palette and Swatches palette and how they relate to each other. It also briefly covers the Gradient Palette. Informative links explaining the difference between RGB, CMYK, hues, tints, etc. are also provided.

Bruno, Elisabetta. About.com. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Working With Graphics in Adobe InDesign CS

In this topic, you will place graphics on the page and then move, resize and crop them.

Adobe. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Worldlabel

Download label templates, in Word or PDF format. CD, DVD, shipping, book, and many other blank label templates for designing your own labels.

Worldlabel.com (1998). Design>Document Design>Prepress

XML Paper Specification (XPS) of a Word 2003 Document

Microsoft breathed new life into legacy office documents by opening an XML window (Office Open XML) to its office products through its royalty-free XPS specification. XPS stands for XML Paper Specification that specifies cross-platform, open standard, document representation that can be used for generating, sharing, printing and archiving of paginated documents. Its virtues in Microsoft's own words are, "With XPS, documents print better, can be shared easier, be archived with confidence, and are more secure."

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. ASPAlliance (2007). Articles>Document Design>Microsoft Office>XML

You Get What You Pay For...Sometimes  

Buying the quality you need isn't just a matter of checking the price tag.

Sidles, Constance J. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

Your Document Covers the Facts, But Does It Keep ’Em Coming Back?  

Much technical documentation merely describes the features or appearance of a product or service, leaving readers uninspired and disinterested. In fact, much of what we write probably never gets read. A combined audience, task, and benefits analysis can help us communicate why a user should do a task—not just how to do it.

Fritz, Anne, Jason R. Huntington, Bruce Knorr, and Judith Leetham. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Document Design>Usability

Annual Report Graphic Use: A Review of the Literature    

Corporate annual reports typically include a narrative section and a financial section. The narrative section is not scrutinized by auditors as the financial section is, yet many readers rely heavily on its graphs to estimate the firm's financial situation. However, the graphs often misrepresent the financial data. To better understand annual report graphs' important role, this article examines more than 25 years of literature related to these four areas: (a) the ways financial graphs are prepared, used, and misinterpreted; (b) differences by country; (c) regulatory influences for accountants; and (d) the parts formatting and media selection decisions play in communication interpretation and persuasion. Across the literature, the author notes consensus that annual report graphs are widely used in many countries and that there is rampant disregard for the guidelines for their accurate, non-misleading presentation. The article concludes with seven proposed directions for future research.

Penrose, John M. JBC (2008). Design>Document Design>Business Communication>Visual Rhetoric

Investigating Presentational Change in U.K. Annual Reports    

This article examines structural and format changes in annual reports of U.K. listed companies from 1965 to 2004 with a particular focus on graph use. The article compares a new sample of 2004 annual reports with preexisting samples by Lee and by Beattie and Jones. Lee's identified trends continue. There has been a sharp increase in page length, voluntary information, and narrative information, particularly among large listed companies. A detailed analysis of voluntary disclosure indicates changes in the incidence and pattern of generic sections. Graph usage is now universal. However, key financial graph use has slightly declined, replaced by graphs depicting other operating issues. Impression management through selectivity, graphical measurement distortion, and manipulation of the length of time series graphed are common. Overall, annual reports continue to exhibit many features of public relations documents rather than financially driven, statutory documents, and the analysis of graph usage suggests a need for policy guidelines to protect users.

Beattie, Vivien, Alpa Dhanani and Michael John Jones. JBC (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Document Design>United Kingdom

Creating Tables in FrameMaker

Tables make information easy to find and understand and are often used for illustrating comparisons among similar data. A table usually consists of a heading row and one or more body rows and may also contain a title.

McMurrey, David A., Jana Owens, Jacqueline J. Pulido and Thomas A. Moore. Illuminati Online (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

InDesign: Basic Page Setup

InDesign is Adobe's replacement for the aging PageMaker application. In many ways, InDesign is very similar to PageMaker, but there are differences that can throw an experienced PageMaker user for a loop (albeit briefly). In this tutorial you will set up a simple layout and master page.

Iowa State University (2000). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Postcard Announcing an Exhibit

In this tutorial, we will create a postcard announcing a fictitious exhibit (or a real one if you have one coming up:) using InDesign. This tutorial was originally written for the InDesign Workshop.

Iowa State University (2000). Design>Document Design>Tutorials>Adobe InDesign

Poster Announcing an Exhibit

This tutorial is a companion to 0002, and was part of the InDesign Workshop. We will create a companion poster announcing the same exhibition.

Iowa State University (2000). Design>Document Design>Tutorials>Adobe InDesign

Creating a Multi-Page Document Using AutoFlow

In this tutorial, we are going to create a simple layout for an existing text document.

Iowa State University (2001). Design>Document Design>Tutorials>Adobe InDesign