GNU Linux Manual of Style for Technical Content Creators 2020

After working with developers and other writers, I had some time off so I created a style manual “template” or “guidance”. I would say the one strong point here is the POSIX issues in using writers on Windows for Linux docs.

Another strong point was having Windows writers working on Linux documentation who have never used Linux.

The most successful documentation for Linux centered tools, processes, applications and utilities is with a seasoned Linux technical writer. The guide was meant to assist people less familiar with Linux understand the importance of writing quality usable and useful documentation.

During the course of writing, I had to write a script to find and “destroy” bad dashes that would never function in a terminal but had a copy code option. Quotes can also be an issue.

While I agreed with Rick Moen, a guide was not really needed at the time, a guide is useful today.

Here is a copy of the guide. This is a pdf of the printed version. At that time, the output was not using pandoc features for cross ref, toc, etc.