Typographical Guidelines

There are separate pages explaining Page Layout and syntax with example code.

Adhering to these typographic guidelines will ensure that your documentation can be accurately and easily exported for translation purposes.

Bold Text

Use bold text to highlight

• Window titles
• Common labels that are not user-configurable
• Icon captions
• Program names

For example:

• Highlighting a selection of text will copy it to klipper.

Italic Text

Use italic text to emphasise

• Words or phrases as in general writing.
• Titles when referencing other works.
• The first use of an unfamiliar word.

Some examples:

• Save your work at this point.
• Details can be found in Samba 3 by Example....
• KDE Manuals are in Docbook format.

Tip

Programs are launched by users, components are used by programs

Combined Bold and Italic Text

Use this combination for replaceable or variable text.

Some examples:

• To connect to your remote server, type ssh [email protected] in Konsole.
• In rpm-based distributions, the command rpm -q packagename will result in package-version-release.

Mono-spaced Text

Code should be presented in mono-spaced text, boxed, as shown below. Input text will be on a pale yellow background. For output text, the background colour will be violet-grey.

• Code, whether single lines or blocks,use templates to ensure consistency

• Check Edit to see the code to use the Input template:

qdbus org.kde.NepomukServer /nepomukserver org.kde.NepomukServer.quit
rm -r ~/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk
rm -r ~/.kde4/share/apps/nepomuk
nepomukserver

• Output works the same way:

terminal output
is also shown as code, but
on a grey background

Text in Section Headers

Even though the criteria above may be met, do not use Bold text in section headers.

Text in Information, Note, Tip or Warning Templates

Bold text should be avoided in the text within these templates. Italic text for emphasis may still be used - use sparingly for maximum effect.

Lists

If an list is long it may be felt desirable to split the list, making it easier to read. If this is done by newline characters it splits the translation sections. The way to achieve this visually but without that side-effect is to use <br /> at the end of the line where you want to break to occur (not on a new line).

Special Tags

• <keycap> and </keycap> denote (keyboard) key names e.g. Enter
• <keycap></keycap> can also be used around groups of keys to be used concurrently, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F1 to launch a virtual terminal. (Note that Note that "+" is used to link keys to be pressed concurrently).
• Sequences of menu choices should use <menuchoice> and </menuchoice> for example View -> Message List -> Aggregation -> Standard Mailing List

(Note the use of "(space)->(space)" to denote the sequence of clicks.)

Translatable Content

Everything that is translatable is contained within <translate> and </translate> tags. In most cases any images should be contained within the translatable section, as it is sometimes necessary to us localised versions of the images to explain a point. The rule of thumb is "If in doubt, include it!".