Download Apple Publications Style Guide

Preface
About This Guide
The Apple Publications Style Guide provides editorial
guidelines for text in Apple instructional publications,
technical documentation, reference information, training
programs, and the software user interface.
Writers, editors, and developers can use this document as a guide to writing style,
usage, and Apple product terminology. Writers and editors should thoroughly review
the guide so that they become familiar with the range of issues involved in creating
high-quality, readable, and consistent documentation. Apple developers and thirdparty developers should follow this guide when labeling user interface elements and
writing any text that users see, as well as when writing documentation for their users.
What’s in This Guide
This 2005 edition of the style guide adds terms used in Mac OS X version 10.4 and its
Classic environment. Terms that appear only in the Classic environment are
designated as such.
 Chapter 1, “Style and Usage,” on page 7, shows how certain terms are used in Apple
publications and gives preferred style (capitalization, spelling, and hyphenation) for
those terms. It also gives general rules of style and usage for Apple publications.
Entries appear in alphabetical order.
 Chapter 2, “Units of Measure,” on page 167, provides preferred style for spelled-out
and abbreviated forms of units of measurement likely to occur in Apple publications.
 Chapter 3, “Apple Products,” on page 175, lists the official names of major Apple
hardware and software products.
 Chapter 4, “Technical Notation,” on page 181, provides special style and usage rules
that apply largely or exclusively to developer documentation. (Some of these rules
are also included by topic in “Style and Usage.”)
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