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Style Guides

© John L. Hoh, Jr.

A style guide consists of formats used when creating documentation. Some companies maintain a formal style guide and adhere to strict documentation standards. Other companies may be more informal, but still maintain some semblance of a style guide, even if it is only an example of the documentation they create.

Creating A Style Guide
Start with whether or not you use a template for your documentation pages. If so, place an example of it in the front of your style guide. Use numbers or letters to identify the various pieces of the template and cross-reference these identifiers with a definition.

For example:

TITLE: Style Guides (A)
SUB-SECTION: Creating a Style Guide (B)
PAGE: 1 of 1 (C)
DATE: 07/25/2001 (D)
(E)

Style Guides (F)

Creating a Style Guide (G)

Start with whether or not you use a template for your documentation pages. . . (H)

*** END EXAMPLE ***

The definition page would look something like this:

(A) TITLE of document. Always prefaced with TITLE: in all capital letters.
(B) SUB-SECTION of document. Always prefaced with SUB-SECTION in all capital letters.
(C) Page number of current page and number of all pages in document. Always prefaced with PAGE: in all capital letters.
(D) Date document created or updated. Use MM/DD/YYYY format. Always preface with DATE: in all capital letters.
(E) Leave two spaces between header and first heading.
(F) Title of document in 12-point font, bold. Use Heading 1 font style in template.
(G) Sub-section titles of document in 12-point font, italicized, bold. Use Heading 2 font style in template.
(H) Text of Sub-section in 11-point font. Use Normal font style in template.

Of course, you’ll also want to identify certain page styles such as margins, gutters, headers, footers, lines, and such.

Style Guides help new technical writers come up to speed quicker!

It’s true! Handing a new technical writer a detailed style guide for your company gives them two things: (1) All the information they need to start working on documentation quickly and efficiently; and (2) a great impression of you and your company!!

What should you include in a Style Guide?
You can get as detailed as you’d like with a style guide. Remember, the less detail, the more style is open for interpretation by those involved. If you want to maintain conformity and standard styles, build your Style Guide with as much detail as possible.

Typographical Considerations
Type. You’ll want to identify the font and the size.

Leading. Identify the number of spaces between paragraphs and sections.

Spacing. Don’t forget to determine how many spaces between a period and the beginning of the next sentence.

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