Running page header/footer spacin question

[Ken Poshedly]

Cripe, here we go again! No sooner than I learn how to correctly set up running 
headers in our tech manuals to help the operator of a 300-ton crane for instance 
know just where he is with the currently open chapter when my coworker decides 
he doesn’t like the idea of using this technique anywhere else except the 
maintenance section he is completing right now. And he expects me to follow his 
lead (which I won't). We are same-level coworkers who report only to our 
company's safety manager who is a really nice guy but knows little or nothing of 
tech publications stuff and has his own hands full trying to get our 
(Asian-owned and operated) company start following OSHA and other regulations. 
Yep, tech pubs is small potatoes.


This is the same coworker who will only do direct paste-ins of screenshots in 
his FrameMaker manuals because it takes 20 seconds to do it his way and longer 
to do it any other way and there is no need to save those screenshots for future 
use (ever, in his mind). (I say one just never knows . . .)

I told him the page formatting elements must be the same across all book 
chapters (we call them sections), or else the book (manual) comes across looking 
like a kludge of different stuff from different sources. He disagrees. (This is 
a guy who had been tech pubs manager for a U.S.-based heavy equipment company 
for many years.)

His maintenance section is only 80 pages long, but 77 Megabytes in size because 
of all the embedded images. It consists of 7 topic level 1 headings with perhaps 
a dozen topic level 2 headings beneath each of them, with  most of them being 
only a page or two long.

To me, running headers in this section (or any other) that indicate which topic 
level 1 the reader is currently at makes things considerably easier for the 
reader.

My coworker agrees with that but doesn’t believe in “forcing it” (his words) 
into the other chapters is required. He says very short chapters (perhaps 10 
pages but still with one, two or three topic level 1 headings) don’t need 
running headers but only the chapter name – which, by the way, is already on the 
thumb-tab of every right-hand page. (They’re black bleeds with the chapter name 
in white and in all-caps.)

Like I said, I believe the chapter formatting should be consistent throughout, 
and whether a chapter has only three such topic level 1 headings or 23 doesn’t 
matter. I believe using them makes it easier for my customer to use the manual 
in general and, thus, feel more positive about my product. My coworker says 
that’s just “apple pie and motherhood stuff” and doesn’t apply here. (Yes, I AM 
ready to explode, but I can’t in an office environment.)

So what I need are websites that back me up. Any ideas? And I don’t need 
websites that simply define a running header as one with a chapter name and 
publication page number, like in term papers or whatever.



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-- Kenpo in Atlanta
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