Page Comparison

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The GMAT Style Guide governs the style of all official GMAT end-user documentation, including training material and the User Guide. When writing documentation for GMAT, use the Microsoft Manual of Style, Fourth Edition as a baseline. This book covers issues such as wording and tone, as well as proper ways to refer to screen elements like menu items and dialog boxes. The rest of this guide highlights parts of the Microsoft manual, but if there is any confusion, reference that document. Any exceptions will be clearly labeled. An internal PDF copy of the book is available on the GMAT network share, at \\mesa-file\595\GMAT\Resources\Microsoft Manual of Style - Fourth Edition.pdf. There are also two hard copies in possession of Steve and Joel. The official GMAT documentation set is written in DocBook 5, an XML-based format. DocBook 5: The Definitive Guide is a comprehensive reference to DocBook and is available online. We use the XMLMind XML Editor to write the documentation, then the Docbook XSL Stylesheets and a variety of other tools to convert from DocBook to a variety of other formats, like HTML, PDF, and CHM (Microsoft's HTML Help). Tips for writing DocBook code are included in each section below for reference.

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For example, consider a sentence that must read differently depending on the configuration: "The document title consists of the following sections." In Docbook, this can be written as shown:

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Minimize the number of nested headings. A how-to article might have a single heading with the title of the article. A long tutorial might have two levels of headings: a title and top-level sections. Use title case for all headings This is a difference from the Microsoft Manual of Style to support legacy documentation with title-case headings. This usage is supported by the Apple Publications Style Guide. In DocBook, tutorials and how-tos both use the chapter element and sections use the section element:

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My Section Title

See the first section for more information. See My Section Title for more information.

Equations

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More complex equations should be encoded as MathML. You can either write MathML by hand (see the Wikipedia article for syntax) or with a math editor that can export as MathML. OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice both have editors that will work for this purpose. Numbered equations should use the equation element:

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Use the following conventions for different types of text elements. For exact font specifications, see the Visual Style section. There is an extensive list of other styles in the Microsoft Manual. Those styles should apply unless explicitly different in the table below. To add to this table, consult the DocBook Reference for available elements.

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