Date   : Mon, 04 Apr 1983 09:15:45-PST
From   : Bob Van Cleef <CCVAX.revc@nosc-cc.arpa>
Subject: Documentation Standards

       I would like to see quidelines for submission of documentation
to nets/rcpms. 

       Quite often I have spent a lot of time changing document
files to make them printable on the local system, and a few
guidelines might make that type of labor unnecessary.  I would
like to see some discussion of this.

1.     Place a comment line at the bottom of the file to
       indicate where the file ends.

It is nice to know that the file was not truncated in transit.

2.     If you are submitting a file generated with WordStar,
       do not use right margin justification.

If the parity (soft) bit gets stripped somewhere along the line,
it is not too much work to go through the file and replace the
hard <cr>'s with soft <cr>'s, but it is a real pain trying to
replace/remove the extra spaces.

3.     Do not use 70+ columns for line width.

Some people are limited to using typewriter based printers,
and would be limitted to 66 columns.  That's the reason I've had
to reformat some non-soft WordStar files.

4.     Use ^L or '.PA' or equivalent for page breaks.  Do not
       use 12 spaces to generate a new page.

It is a lot easier to change a formfeed to blank lines than to change
blank lines to a formfeed.  Same goes for WordStar's '.PA' command.

       This list is not complete or all inclusive.  I hope that
it may prime the pumps so that we can get a GOOD standard for
exchanging document file.  I would prefer to receive all the
files in pure WordStar format, but every one of the mainframe
systems that I deal with, from VAX's to CompuServe, have
path restrictions for the parity bit.  If this was discussed
awhile back, and I missed it, I would appreciate a summary
-BY MAIL-.

       Bob Van Cleef - revc@NOSC