Editing Advanced PDA Node Editing (section)

=== Miscellaneous Visual Tips and Tricks ===
- '''''Think about word wrap/line length'''''. By default, the system uses word wrapping - you can make any individual line as long as you want. 90% of the time this is just fine. But... if you're using any kind of strict formatting setup, word wrapping is going to muck with how it looks, because clients can differ on where they insert the line breaks. If I'm doing manual line breaks, I usually try to write to a maximum of 77 characters a line, because that shouldn't wrap on basically anything short of mobile. To make doing it easier, include a horizontal line of 77 dashes and use it for section breaks as a marker to eyeball to.

- '''''Include space'''''. Paragraph breaks, bullet points, and empty lines make things SO much easier to read. I also like section breaks, as mentioned above. 

- '''''Use color consistently and sparingly.''''' We can't do bold or italics or anything like that, so color's your major tool for formatting. Using the same kind of color schemes for the same levels of headings makes long and complicated nodes easier to follow. Too much color, though, and things get super distracting.

- '''''Consider saving templates'''''. If you always write things the same way, it'll save you time and mental effort. I have a template I can use for making Group 10 Research Reports, for example, which is a Notepad file that just contains the standard headings:<blockquote>|{150,255,255}[PROJECT NAME]|n

|{150,255,255}[PERSONNEL]|n

|{150,255,255}[SUBJECT OF STUDY]|n

|{150,255,255}[OBJECTIVES]|n

|{150,255,255}[METHODS]|n

|{150,255,255}[RESULTS]|n

|{150,255,255}[CONCLUSIONS]|n</blockquote>