How to Write Technical Reports 2e by Hering

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How to Write Technical Reports 2e by Hering is the 2nd edition of the How to Write Technical Reports: Understandable Structure, Good Design, Convincing Presentation book authored by Heike Hering and published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2019.

  • Acrobat Reader is a free-of-charge viewer from the company Adobe to read PDF files, which you can download at www.adobe.com/de/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
  • The ANSI (American National Standards Institute) deals with standardization and has e. g. developed the ASCII Code. The ASCII Code (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a standard to store letters, figures and symbols as decimal number in Byte (in txt files). It can only code the European languages.
  • BW is sometimes used as an abbreviation for black and white.
  • Bookmarks are used in the internet browser (favorite internet addresses) and in PDF files (navigation through the document on the left side).
  • Bullets mark the different items in unstructured lists. People either use the common symbols •, •, -, –, — etc. or more "pictorial" symbols from fonts like Symbol, Webdings, Wingdings, Zapf Dingbats etc.
  • Caps]]. Capital letters, majuscules.
  • CMYK stands for the colors cyan (turquoise), magenta (pink), yellow and black. Printers need all color information based on this color system for 4-color-printing.
  • During compression the file size is reduced by a packing program. Moreover, many single files can be combined to one easy-to-handle archive file. In this process a file with the extension *.zip is created. Due to the compression more data can be stored on the storage device. Sending e-mails with a compressed file in the attachment is much faster than without compression.
  • Consistency in Technical Reports means, that equal tasks regarding spelling, punctuation and typography are performed always in the same way throughout the whole report.
  • Correction symbols are used during proof-reading and are standardized in ISO 5776.
  • CPI (characters per inch). 10 and 12 cpi are common spacings for fonts with fixed spacing (typewriter or fonts like Courier, Letter Gothic etc.).
  • DPI (dots per inch). 300 and 600 dpi are typical resolutions for laser and ink jet printers. 300 dpi is the minimum resolution of images, if they shall be printed in a journal or book.
  • Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for electronic documents. In the internet digital documents (files) or objects can be found under the address, where they are put on an internet server (URL/URI), but internet addresses are changed from time to time. Therefore the DOI (digital object identification) system was founded by the International DOI Foundation (IDF) to identify the objects themselves. The objects get a number and a server looks in his data base, where the objects are currently available. Example:]]. The object with https://doi.org/10.1007/s003390201377 is found, if you go to the DOI Resolver and enter the DOI number into the search window of the server or you enter directly the URI https://doi.org/10.1007/s003390201377 into your browser (i.e. http://dx.doi.org/ and DOI number). You will then be redirected to the server, where the object is available or get a list of links.
  • DTP (Desktop Publishing) is preparing documents at your desk ready to be printed by means of suited DTP programs which can mix text and graphics. Creating two and more column pages and the positioning of figures can be controlled more precisely than with a word-processing program and for later printing. CMYK color separations can be created. Quark Express and PageMaker are well-known page-oriented DTP programs, with FrameMaker you can create even very thick documents or books very efficiently.
  • DTV (Didactic Typographic Visualization) according to REICHERT is visualizing with "text images" (pictorial and tabular re-arrangement of text). Here unstructured lists, boxes, arrows and similar typographic means are used. DTV also makes clear the logical and evtl. hierarchical dependence of text blocks by means of targeted usage of lines, which mostly run vertical and horizontal only. DTV fills the gap between conventional continuous text and graphic visualization and allows easy creation of the text images, interested reading and spontaneous understanding of the relevant facts.
  • A fixed spacing font is a font with a fixed character spacing (Courier etc.). In a fixed spacing font the distance from the middle of one letter to the middle of the next letter is constant. Therefore there is some white space on the right and left side of narrow characters (opposite: proportional font).
  • Font attributes define the typesetting of the characters and words in a certain font.
  • Font attributes are for example, bold, italic, underlining: simple, double and dotted, but also crossed out, superscript, subscript, expanded, SMALL CAPS and CAPITAL LETTERS.
  • The word glossary is derived from the Greek ckxssa = tongue, language. It is the international name for an alphabetically sorted list of technical terms together with definitions of these terms.
  • Half tone image is an image with smooth transitions of the gray or color values.
  • The header of a table is the top row (line). It contains the generic terms of the entries in the appertaining column. Therefore, it is often accentuated by typographic means (e. g. with a double line or with a gray background).
  • A hyperlink is connection, a reference or a goto command. If you click on the hyperlink, you go to another position within the same file or a program is started and the file or internet address named in the hyperlink is displayed.
  • Hyphen -- hyphenation proposal (soft hyphen, SHY) or -- non-breaking hyphen, NHY
  • A soft hyphen (SHY) is a hyphenation proposal, which is entered in the middle of a word to prevent wrong automatic hyphenation or to avoid too large distances between the words. If due to text insertions or deletions the soft hyphen moves to the middle of the line, it is invisible (in the printout). If you enter a normal hyphen and it moves to the middle of the line, it is visible and needs to be deleted explicitly via keyboard, what is often overseen or forgotten.
  • An icon is a small pictorial symbol on the desktop or in a computer program. If you click on the icon, the computer runs a function. That is more convenient than using the menus.
  • An inch is a unit of length. 1 inch = 25.4 mm = 2.54 cm. The resolution of images, printers, copiers and scanners is specified in dpi (dots per inch).
  • The word index is Latin and means forefinger, pointer, overview, title and table of contents. It is the international name for the list of keywords with page numbers to quickly find the relevant text passages.
  • The introductory column of a table is the first column from the left. It contains the generic terms of the entries in the rows. Therefore, it is often accentuated by typographic means (e. g. with a double line or with a gray background).
  • International Standard Book Number ISBN for books (monographs)
  • International Standard Serial Number ISSN (for journals and serial publications)
  • The term layout summarizes all measures to influence the appearance of information on the paper. This includes the document or page layout resp. (for example defining the page margins, usage of a page header) and the definition of paragraph and character formats: selection of the font type and size for document part headings, text, figure subheadings, table headings, indentions, accentuations (italic, bold, underlined), usage of bullets in unstructured lists as well as the definition, how labels in images and tables shall be designed.
  • Library of Congress Control Number LCCN (formerly Library of Congress Catalog Card Number) for publications which are registered by the American National Library
  • A legend is a bulky explanation for tables and figures, which is delivered to the reader in addition to the figure subtitle. A legend is always located below the table or figure. Sometimes it appears in a box. In English the term legend is also used as a synonym for figure subtitle and used in opposition to a figure caption (above the figure), which we call figure title in this book to distinguish it from the legend.
  • lpi (lines per inch). 6, 4 and 3 lpi means line spacing 1, 1½ and 2. This specification of the line spacing is from the type writer and matrix printer age, today it is not so usual any more.
  • A macro is an abbreviated command in a computer program, which substitutes entering several other commands (or characters in a word-processing program).
  • Majuscules (capital letters) is a font attribute. Text in majuscules is much harder to read than text with capital and small letters.
  • Minuscles. Small letters, opposite to majuscles.
  • Multimedia is the combination of text, tables, images, sound and video sequences (including computer animations) to a new form of information display. If a person perceives such information, several senses are addressed at the same time. This improves the amount of learning and remembering.
  • The non-breaking space (NBSP) is e. g. used between the components of a multi-part abbreviation or between an abbreviated title and last name. It creates a fixed (word) gap, which may be smaller than between ordinary words in case of left- and right-justified text, and it prevents an automatic word wrap or line break resp. at that position, so that the abbreviations and names like "i.e., e.g., Dr. Minor" stay together either on the old line or on the new one.
  • A non-breaking hyphen (NBH) is a hyphen, where the word-processing program will not change the lines, under no circumstances. This prevents, that in words which are combined with an abbreviation, the abbreviation stands alone on the old line. Example: "X-ray".
  • OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a function when scanning. A software reads the scanned pages and converts the pixels to editable characters.
  • PDF (Portable Document Format) is a page description language, which has been defined by the company Adobe. The line and page break remains unchanged, i. e. the reader sees the pages on his computer in exactly the same way as the author has created them. See also Acrobat Reader.
  • A pictogram is a pictorial symbol like an icon. If an image is saved in a pixel graphics format, the image information contains single image points (pixels). For each pixel it is saved, where it is and which color it has. Therefore the file size quickly rises, if the image area rises (opposite: vector graphics).
  • PostScript (PS) is a page description language, which has been defined by the company Adobe. Nearly all current printers work with PostScript. Since Adobe take license fees for the screen display of PS files and distribute the Acrobat Reader for PDF files free-of-charge, PDF has established as de-facto standard for the exchange of formatted documents.
  • Printed area is the area of a printed page, where "printing ink", i. e. texts, figures, headers and footers, tables etc. are or may be. In multi-column typesetting the printing area for each column is limited by white space.
  • A proportional font is a font with variable character spacing (Times New Roman, Arial etc.). That means, to put it simply, that in a text written with a proportional font the distance from the end of one letter to the beginning of the next letter is constant (opposite: fixed spacing font).
  • A protected hyphen. Non-breaking hyphen
  • A protected space. Non-breaking space
  • Point (pt): Unit of length in the graphical industry, e. g. used for character height and line thickness.
  • With a rasterizing film you can disseminate a half tone image during copying or a negative during the enlargement into more or less coarse pixels.
  • Rasterizing is the dissemination of a halftone image into pixels, see above, but it is also the filling of surfaces or the background of text boxes and table cells with gray or color of different intensity. In word-processing programs this is sometimes called shading.
  • Reading aids are all lists/indexes and labels of a document, which exceed the pure text with figures and tables, i. e. all types of lists/indexes, footnotes, marginalia, register markings, headers and footers as well as column headings.
  • RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) means identification of things and creatures (e. g. containers, dogs) by means of electromagnetic waves radio chip transmits. RFID-Chips are also hidden in the spine of books in the library.
  • For scalable fonts you can select the font size in the word-processing program. It is specified in the typographic unit point (pt).
  • Serial Item and Contribution Identifier SICI for articles and contributions to periodicals.
  • Serifs are the small lines at the ends of the letters, e. g. from the Times family. While reading they help the eye to hold the line.
  • Soft hyphen. Hyphenation proposal.
  • Small caps is a font attribute using no small letters, but only normal-sized and a little smaller capital letters. See also majuscles.
  • Space character. Non-breaking space.
  • The structure contains every document part number and heading, but no page numbers. It contains the logic of the contents, the "backbone". It is an intermediate result and grows with further writing of the Technical Report via the states 4-point-structure and 10-point-structure up to the final detailed structure.
  • The Style Guide is a collection of certain notations, technical terms and layout rules for a larger document (from about 20 pages on). It helps, that within a larger work the same items are always expressed (terminology) or displayed (layout) in the same way, i.e. that the work is consistent in itself.
  • A table of contents (ToC) contains for each document part the document part number, document part heading and page number and allows to quickly find chapters, subchapters, sections etc.
  • In text images, text and structuring or connecting lines/arrows/boxes are aligned image-like, so that understanding the message is facilitated and the remembering of the contents is improved. Text images are often used on slides. See DTV.
  • A text table is a table, which predominantly contains text.
  • Typography is the positioning of printing ink on the paper. It is distinguished between macro-typography (on text or page level) and micro-typography (on character level).
  • Unicode is an international computer code for calligraphic and text symbols from all known languages, writing cultures and character systems on the earth (see also ASCII). Unicode shall eliminate different incompatible codes in different countries or cultures. The Unicode character set is standardized in ISO 10646. One character needs 21 bit space.
  • If an image is saved in a vector graphics format, the image information contains scalable geometry information (e.g. center point coordinates and radius of a circle). For these geometry objects also line and fill color, line type, filling pattern etc. are saved.
  • The file size of vector graphics is much smaller than the file size of a pixel graphic showing the same items.
  • A viewer is a program to look at text and graphics files.
  • White space is a white area on the page, where there are no alphanumerical symbols, e. g. the spare line between two paragraphs or the white space between table cells and rows (if the cells are not limited by lines).
  • Zip file deals with compression.
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