atw: Re: page numbering - which style to use
- From: "Deborah Cross" <Deborah.Cross@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 10:32:31 +1100
This may not help your argument and you're probably already aware of it,
but the AGPS Style manual opts for A:
"It is conventional to number the preliminary pages of a book with
lower-case roman numerals. This practice allows extra material to be
added before printing without having to change the page numbering of the
main text. For aesthetic reasons, the roman page numbers are not
printed on some of the preliminary pages."
My gut reaction is to be scared of moving away from convention, but now
that you've made me question it I can't see why we shouldn't do B
instead. Especially if you have control over what you are printing and
are unlikely to insert extra front matter.
It could be a bold new move in publishing Bob - go where no man has gone
before!
The only argument I could think of for A was that people expect to see
it and your materials might be seen as less professional if they don't
conform to convention? As always, it depends on your audience. If they
don't read a lot of books they may not care one way or another.
_____
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Trussler
Sent: Thursday, 23 November 2006 9:48 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: page numbering - which style to use
There is a debate raging in my tech writer team about what numbering
style we should use in our documents. We are developing new standards.
We currently have two choices, shown below. Does anyone have support
for the modern way of using Arabic numbering throughout? I reckon that
Roman for front matter followed by Arabic for the content comes from the
olden days of hand publishing when the content was assembled THEN the
Table of Contents was assembled later, so why do we need to maintain
this style?
(A) Keep the front matter separate from main content:
- Front matter uses lower-case Roman with the Title page and Copyright
unnumbered
- Rest of the doc in sequential Arabic, starting at 1.
(B) Number the whole doc in sequential Arabic:
- Whole doc including the front matter in sequential Arabic. Numbering
begins at 1 on the title page
- Title page and Copyright with no number displayed.
Thanks in advance.
Bob Trussler
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