Microsoft Manual of Style

by Microsoft Corporation

• ISBN13: 9780735648715
• ISBN10: 0735648719
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-15
• Publisher: Microsoft Press

Summary

Maximize the impact and precision of your message! Now in its fourth edition, the Microsoft Manual of Style provides essential guidance to content creators, journalists, technical writers, editors, and everyone else who writes about computer technology. Direct from the Editorial Style Board at Microsoft-you get a comprehensive glossary of both general technology terms and those specific to Microsoft; clear, concise usage and style guidelines with helpful examples and alternatives; guidance on grammar, tone, and voice; and best practices for writing content for the web, optimizing for accessibility, and communicating to a worldwide audience. Fully updated and optimized for ease of use, the Microsoft Manual of Style is designed to help you communicate clearly, consistently, and accurately about technical topics-across a range of audiences and media.

Author Biography

Developed by senior editors and content managers at Microsoft Corporation.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xxii
Introduction to the Fourth Edition	p. xxiv
General Topics
Microsoft style and voice	p. 3
Principles of Microsoft style	p. 3
Bias-free communication	p. 11
Anthropomorphism	p. 14
Parallelism	p. 16
Content for the web	p. 19
Make the right content choices	p. 19
Text for the web	p. 21
Video content for the web	p. 23
Blogs	p. 24
Community-provided content	p. 26
Evaluate your content	p. 27
Help users find your content	p. 28
International considerations for web content	p. 32
Accessibility considerations for web content	p. 32
Legal considerations for web content	p. 32
Content for a worldwide audience	p. 33
Global English syntax	p. 33
Machine translation syntax	p. 35
Terminology and word choice	p. 37
Technical terms	p. 38
Jargon	p. 38
Latin and other non-English words	p. 39
Global art	p. 40
Examples and scenarios	p. 41
International currency	p. 41
Time and place	p. 41
Names and contact information	p. 42
Fonts	p. 43
Web, software, and HTML issues	p. 43
Legal issues with worldwide content	p. 45
Additional globalization resources	p. 46
Accessible content	p. 47
Accessibility guidelines and requirements	p. 47
Accessible webpages	p. 48
Accessible writing	p. 49
Accessible graphics and design	p. 50
Acceptable terminology	p. 50
The user interface	p. 51
Windows user interface	p. 51
Windows Phone user interface	p. 54
User interface elements	p. 59
Ribbons, menus, and toolbars	p. 60
Webpage controls, dialog boxes, and property sheets	p. 70
Backstage view	p. 72
Control Panel	p. 74
Messages	p. 75
Other user interface elements	p. 78
Modes of interaction	p. 83
Mouse terminology	p. 85
Key names	p. 87
Content for multiple platforms	p. 92
User interface text	p. 93
User interface formatting	p. 94
Procedures and technical content	p. 99
Procedures	p. 99
Document conventions	p. 107
Cloud computing style	p. 111
Reference documentation	p. 114
Code examples	p. 117
Security	p. 120
Command syntax	p. 121
File names and extensions	p. 122
Version identifiers	p. 123
Out-of-band release terminology	p. 125
Protocols	p. 126
XML tag, element, and attribute formatting	p. 126
HTML tag, element, and attribute formatting	p. 128
Readme files and release notes	p. 128
Practical issues of style	p. 131
Capitalization	p. 131
Titles and headings	p. 134
Microsoft in product and service names	p. 137
Lists	p. 138
Tables	p. 143
Cross-references	p. 146
Notes and tips	p. 150
Numbers	p. 152
Dates	p. 158
Phone numbers	p. 159
Time zones	p. 161
Measurements and units of measure	p. 162
URLs, addresses	p. 163
Names of special characters	p. 165
Art, captions, and callouts	p. 167
Bibliographies and citations	p. 170
Page layout	p. 172
Grammar	p. 177
Verbs and verb forms	p. 177
Agreement	p. 179
Voice	p. 179
Mood	p. 181
Nouns	p. 182
Words ending in -ing	p. 185
Prepositions	p. 186
Prefixes	p. 187
Dangling and misplaced modifiers	p. 187
Punctuation	p. 189
Periods	p. 189
Commas	p. 190
Apostrophes	p. 191
Colons	p. 192
Semicolons	p. 193
Quotation marks	p. 194
Parentheses	p. 194
Hyphens, hyphenation	p. 195
Dashes	p. 198
Ellipses	p. 199
Slash mark	p. 201
Formatting punctuation	p. 202
Indexes and keywords	p. 203
Indexes	p. 203
Keywords and online index entries	p. 211
Acronyms and other abbreviations	p. 215
How to use acronyms and other abbreviations	p. 215
Table of acronyms and other abbreviations	p. 216
How to use abbreviations of measurements	p. 229
Table of abbreviations of measurements	p. 230
Process for adopting new acronyms or abbreviations	p. 232
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