Chapter Objectives

Upon completion of this chapter, readers will be able to:

  1. Recognize the standard components of a front cover, back cover, and title page.
  2. Recognize the common front matter of a book including edition notices, disclaimers, trademarks, warranties, safety notices, and communication statements.
  3. Recognize the common organization strategies of books including tables of contents, tables of figures, a preface, and body chapters.
  4. Explain and apply typical book layout and design.

Book Design Overview 

The following provides an overview of the typical components of a printed technical book and the typical content, format, style, and sequence of those components. Certainly, no single user guide, technical reference manual, quick-reference document, or other such document would actually have all of these components designed and sequenced in precisely the way you are about to read. Instead, this review will give an overview of the possibilities—let's say the range of possibilities.

Before you begin reading the following, grab a number of hardware and software books so that you can compare their content, style, format, and sequencing to what is discussed here.

For even more detail than you see here, consult these two standard industry resources:

  • Sun Technical Pubs. Read Me First! Any recent edition. Prentice Hall.
  • Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications. Any recent edition. Microsoft Press.