Grammar and Punctuation in Desktop Publishing

Explore the styles and usage for common keyboard symbols such as the at sign, asterisk, backslash, and hyphen.

Kimberly Dawn Wells, writing for Suite 101, has tips on using apostrophes to show ownership.

Guide Grace Fleming discusses some words that often confuse even the best writers including fewer/less, it's/its, and whose/who's with examples of how to use these words properly.

Posted July 2004: How the informality and internationality of Internet communications is affecting grammar and ways to combat the decline in writing proficiency.

Posted June 2004: There's a difference between informal writing and just not knowing how to use exclamation points and semi-colons.

Anne Caborn encourages the use of proper punctuation even in the sometimes less formal world of the Internet.

Guide Richard Nordquist laments the overuse and abuse of "quotes" in this blog commentary entitled Don't "Quote" Me.

About Grammar and Composition posts 4 guidelines for effective use of commas.

One mark of professionally set type is the proper use of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes. Each is a different size and has its own proper usage. Learn how to create, modify, and typeset en dashes (–), em dashes (—), and hyphens (-) in desktop publishing.

Elliptical periods, more commonly called an ellipsis, indicate the omission of text or an interruption or hesitation. Here's how to create them.

About Quotations Guide Simran Khurana wants to be sure that when you use quotations they don't appear as plagiarism or look amateurish. Follow these punctuation guidelines for quoting quotations.

Guide Richard Nordquist describes the proper use of end punctuation.

Whether or not you are using typographically correct quotation marks, make sure you are using grammatically correct quotation marks.

Avoid the look of an amateur by properly using typographer’s quotation marks (curly quotes) and apostrophes and primes in your desktop published documents. Learn how to access the curly quotes and proper apostrophes on a Mac or Windows PC.

Guide Richard Nordquist tells us how and when to use these punctuation marks.

Learn how to properly use diacriticals such as acute, tilde, and circumflex including tips on making them look better while using them correctly.

How to use bold type effectively.

Addresses changes to The Chicago Manual of Style as it applies to small caps and some punctuation conventions.

How to use italic type effectivley.

How to use small caps effectively in desktop publishing.

Even though properly typeset material uses one space after a period, many people still type two spaces as if still using an old-fashioned typewriter. The fastest way to get rid of those extra spaces before importing text into your page layout program is to search your document for two spaces and replace those with a single space, preferrably...