Your callout philosophy

[Stuart Rogers]

Nancy Allison wrote:
> I am working on a document that currently has both paragraph tags for 
> callouts, and character tags.
> 
> I can create callouts either by:
> 
> --Creating a text box in the figure, entering text, and formatting it 
> with a callout paragraph tag. I prefer this. Makes it easy to widen or 
> narrow the callout text.
> 
> --Using the Text tool to enter text, and formatting it with a character 
> tag. If the text needs to be expanded or edited, all repositioning of 
> text must be done manually. A pain.
> 
> However, I could be missing something. How do you create your callouts, 
> and why?
> 

I used to use text boxes with single-cell tables containing para-tagged 
text, for ease of borders/shading/spacing, fonts, etc.  But now that I 
am writing with translation/localization in mind, I put only consecutive 
numbers in those table cells and put the explanatory text below the 
figure in a separate table or caption.  The translated text can grow or 
shrink as much as necessary without messing up the callouts.


-- 
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
Toronto, ON, Canada
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

srogers phoenix-geophysics com

"A man's screech should exceed his rasp, or what's a violin for?"

--another Rogers Original