Syntax question: All writing with or withoutcap locks

Mostly caps, because they are easier to read at various sizes of drawing reproduction. But, not an absolute - sometimes lower case for a special occasion.

WT

Reply to
Wayne Tiffany
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When I grew up, they only taught us lettering in caps, because that was the ANSI spec, IIRC. I still do it that way now, on the PC. A program called CapsWiz is very handy for making sure the caps lock is ON whenever SW has focus. I see a lot of German drawings, and they seem to mix cases quite happily.

I can see a benefit to using all caps when making reproductions. The larger the letters, the more likely you'll be able to read the copy.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

i have a drawing requirements manual (references multiple standards) no mention of explict use of caps for notes (although all examples are in caps).

Reply to
kenneth b

Do you write all notes and dimension text with or without caps lock on? We see both practice in the industry but is there one standard?

Reply to
Robin

Here in Poland- all notes lower case, except the word "NOTES". But even "Notes" can be lower case, though.

Konrad A mech eng Gdynia Poland self satisfied woodden chair steel desk huge carlsberg, glass bottle

Reply to
KA

Interesting human factors fact- it is easeir to read mixed caps and lowercase. That is why the body text of books and newspapers are printed in caps and lowercase instead of in all caps.

If you want an objective test, give it a try on any lengthy WORD document that you may have laying around. Select all the words and go to format-change case. Try reading it in all caps then in 'sentence' case and see what makes your brain hurt more. Adopt the less painful one as your default, whatever that may be.

That said, I suspect that all caps is less likely to degrade to a useless state after a few smudged copies. If I had to come up with a theory, all caps was adopted as a standard becuase of poor reproduction technologies. As Wayne says, all caps are bigger so they will still be legible when the drawing is tiny (though making caps and lowercase bigger would also work) From a pure human factors standpoint, caps and lowercase is hard to dis.

Since I had it in my archive, the following is kind of relevant and provides an interesting factoid about reading and human factors:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig, huh?

Reply to
Edward T Eaton

I bet that gave your spell check fits!

MT

Reply to
Malcolm_Tempt

Ed, I respectfully take a diverging point of view on this. Let me start by conceding unconditionally that flowing content is much easier to digest in "Sentence case" capitalisation.

I think it's oversimplifying the issues to leap from this observation to the suggestion that engineering drawings should therefore ideally be predominantly annotated in lower case.

Notes on an engineering drawing are (preferably) written in a non-flowing language form, similar to telegraph language, or newspaper headlines. This is because the primary vehicle in an engineering drawing is not text, but linework and/or shaded renditions. Drawings are essentially written in a graphic "language", and I would expect that this is probably processed in a different area of the brain.

Text is used in drawings only where the graphic depiction does not unambiguously convey the definition. To avoid clutter, distraction and detraction, content is truncated by leaving out words: we don't write "We suggest that this component should be bead-blasted before it goes in the treatment tank for etching" we say "BEAD BLAST PRIOR TO ETCHING"

The truer comparison along the lines of your suggestion, I feel, would be to compare which of these is easier on the brain, rather than taking a lengthy Word document as the trial horse.

Then (from the same distance- remembering that we often read drawings pinned to a wall or whatever) compare the second rendition above with "bead blast prior to etching"

If we scale up the lower case text for legibility from a distance, the line spacing increases to cope with the wasteful aspect ratio variations. The text starts to compete with the linework for our attention, whereas it should amplify it where the linework is insufficient.

In the context of "reading" a drawing, I consider the ALL CAPS approach wins hands down. However, translating a novel into telegraphese, and/or printing a novel in ALL CAPS, would clearly not work.

Perhaps it is not entirely coincidental that telegrams were invariably printed in all capitals, and newspaper headlines still are.

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The other factor in a drawing, aside from reproduction fidelity issues, is that when they are in a workshop or worksite, they become subject to dirt, oil, sparks, and other indignities. Capitals are less fiddly, and generally more unambiguous in this context. The exception is O and 0, (although, depending on font, these vary in differentiation), whereas l (lowercase L) and 1 (number one) are always problematic in any font, unless we can see them both at once.

Personally I avoid lower case on engineering drawings except in two situations:

1) recognised abreviations, such as kW, mm, Nm 2) notes which are intended for pre-issue reading : perhaps a note to myself ("Check stress at this section" or a detailer "show this recess in a transverse scrap section": (I also colour these green, and tilt them so they stand out) These are to be acted on, then deleted, before issue.

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I've already rambled on overmuch, but it occurs to me that is the very redundancy of lower case, serif text which makes it so easy to skim in flowing language- our brain chooses its own identifiers on the fly, to suit its unique pattern recognition and rhythm, and fills in gaps (words we don't explicitly read) from contextual inferences, whereas upper case sans serif works at the opposite end, where every letter is clipped and unambiguous, every word is freighted with significance, and we DO NOT want the reader to skim and infer.

Reply to
Andrew Troup

I apologize if it appeared I was advocating that mixed case was my recommendation for DRAWINGS.

I just thought it interesting that Wayne finds caps easier to read when other fields that focus on communication (specifically graphic design and typesetting) have established that mixed case is easier to read. That was kind of my point of interest, and what I wanted to comment on.

I must learn to use my words to convey tone better. I believe the ANSI standard is caps, and know that our engineers use all caps in their drawings. I provided MORE specific instances in my post for why CAPS would be preferred for drawings than I did for the contrary, and you spelled out a whole bunch of others. Your thoughtful response ought to be of great value to Robin.

At no point did I say that engineering drawings should ideally be annotated in mixed case. The closest I came was to propose an objective test in case the poster had case it their discretion, and suggested that the decision may be informed by his results (which may be caps are easier to read). Though I am guilty of saying that mixed case is hard to dis, but again it was from a pure ease of use standpoint. If you want to make things easier to read, you really have to use mixed case - we ought to all agree on this. If you want a more deliberate investment from your reader, if you want to avoid them looking at words as packets (like in the misspelling thing at the end of my post) then CAPS actually works to your purpose. In a drawing, which is a legal document that has lots of money associated with it, a strong case can be made for requiring more of an investment from the reader. Again, leveraging the human factors stuff, but in a different direction!

Thanks for your comments, Andrew

-Ed

Reply to
Edward T Eaton

Andrew,

I am impressed by the clarity of you points. If I was ever wishy-washy about the case I used in a drawing note - that time is no more. Were you on the debate team?

Sincerely, Jerry Forcier

Andrew Troup wrote:

Reply to
Jerry Forcier

Guys

Thank you both for your comments

Ed

Guilty as charged! I did misrepresent your point of view, by collapsing it as I did.

Looking back, I took your "Adopt the less painful one as your default, whatever that may be" -- along with my personal conviction that applying the ALL CAPS instance of the suggested test to a lengthy document would inevitably result in severe pain to anyone with "conventional" brain wiring (please don't flame me, any CAPS addicts !) -- as a de facto recommendation for mixed case on drawings.

Jerry

I *was* on the debating team, but I never did that well, probably 'cos my Dad was the teacher who ran (and often judged) the debates, and praps I was trying to protect us both from the accusation or avoidance or actuality of favouritism. (If that's too obscure: if I was crap enough, then even Dad would recognise it!)

Reply to
Andrew Troup

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