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Rating: 
Summary: A Glaring Weakness
Review: How annoying to turn to the Recommended Reading section and find that many of the books are out of print.
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Summary: Super Reference Book, with one small flaw!
Review: I can't say enough good things about the information presented in this book - it has become a primary reference for me in all of my technical writing. I also use the Mcrosoft Sytle guide in conjunction with this book and find that the two balance each other very well. The one flaw with this book is -- as noted by another reviewer -- the CD. Frame Viewer is a product from the original authors of FrameMaker and, quite frankly, it's old! Also -- and this is most significant -- the files are .doc files, created with an older version of Frame. I found the best solution was to copy the .doc files into a separate folder, then open them directly with FM 5.5.6. The automatic conversion is performed and you can then save them as .fm files and even generate a pdf for personal ease-of-use.
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Summary: Dull, verbose and full of technical jargon.
Review: Much of the material is entry level, which is a disappointment.The writer does not follow his/her own example. For example, he/she states that sequential callouts should always begin at 1:00 on the page. The example includes a callout beginning at 11:00. Anyone in this industry recognizes that simple, direct writing is required to keep the writer's attention. This book is dull and full of technical jargon. I hope this book improves.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book, but watch out for the CD!
Review: Reasonably good book, especially for style information, but found areas in the book where they did not follow their own advice. The FrameViewer CD that accompanied the book caused considerable problems once loaded on my PC. Only after 3 long distance phone calls, taking better than 2 hours out of my day waiting on hold, being transferred, etc. did I find out who, exactly, was responsible for the software! From what I saw (and what the techs at Adobe could determine) there is no way to uninstall this software! Buyer beware! I had to work with Adobe Tech Support to at least get my other programs working reliably again! A very hard lesson learned, indeed! If you intend to use the FrameViewer software, take heed of these problems!
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Summary: A good book gets even better in 2nd edition
Review: The first edition of this style guide was good, especially if you wanted an alternative to the Microsoft Manual of Style, but this edition is even better. It covers a wider range of issues (for example, adding much information about writing online material), and covers them very well. In fact, the book goes a bit beyond style in an appendix on developing a publications department, but the topics covered are certainly relevant and valuable, so I'm glad they were included. I don't always agree with the style choices, but that's irrelevant; I've never seen any style guide I completely agree with. Overall, I'm so impressed with this book, I'm likely to use it as a textbook for teaching technical editors. As you can tell, I'm giving it the "highly recommended" stamp.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent source for developing a concise style guide.
Review: There's a lot of great information in this book. When you're starting from nothing to develop a style guide, it's a great resource. So much of what we do when creating technical documentation is done as a matter of practice. Getting the structure down and having this book to jog our memory was fantastic. One improvement would be to include a section on layout and design. I liked the formulas for calculating hours found under Recommended Reading. Good information about developing a publications department, too. Nice overview for constructing a document plan. This is definately a book for people who do not have an established publication/documentation department. There's lots of great information found in the 256 pages.
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Summary: Great content and FrameMaker templates as a bonus!
Review: This book quickly won out over the MS Manual of Style as ourprimary style reference for its content, organisation and departurefrom the MS way of living life. As I read the other reviews, I think many readers don't realise that this type of book is a guide, a "getting started" reference, to help your tech pubs department develop its own customised style guide. We have taken the best ideas here, the best ideas from Digital and the best ideas from MS, and have created a style manual for our particular business, geared to the educational level and computer experience of our customers. Read Me First! contributed more ideas than the other books because it has a broader world view. The MS manual assumes that the reader is planning to work at MS doing MS-distributed documents. As a bonus, Read Me First! includes a CD-ROM with the FrameMaker templates used to construct the book. This was a great boon to our company. We were just converting from MS Weird to FrameMaker and were considering contractors to build templates for us. Instead, we saved money and time by not having to start at ground level. We were able to tweak the templates and get the results we needed in a very short time. We are eagerly awaiting an update to this manual to see what other great ideas they've come up with since the first printing.
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Summary: Super Reference Book for Creating a Company Writing Style
Review: This is an excellent book to read if you are in the position of having to create any kind of writing style guides for the company you work for. The book's sections include one on writing style itself and why it is important, working with an editor, working wit illustrations, writing for an international audience, legal guidelines, the "mechanics of writing," creating an index, among others. The book makes some good points and provides an informative reference for writing style questions. Two small points against it. The CD is difficult at times to use and the Recommended Reading section lists some books that are out of print. Time for an update perhaps? However, it's still an excellent book to have when having to make decisions about your own company's writing style. When I had to write a Writing Style Guide as a class assignment, this book was one of the ones I used as a reference.
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Summary: Excellent guidelines for indexing technical manuals.
Review: This review will focus only on Chapter 9, Indexing.
In my previous life, I was a technical writer. For the past 6 years, I have been a freelance professional indexer, dividing my time between indexing computer books and delivering indexing workshops for technical writers. I am delighted to see a book for technical writers that contains such excellent guidelines for indexing technical manuals.
As the introduction to Chapter 9 alludes, indexes enhance product usability. In addition to affecting customers' perceptions of the product, indexes affect customers' perceptions of the developer's credibility.
One of the biggest complaints end users of technical manuals have is the inability to find the information they need. If technical writers apply the guidelines in this Chapter, they will avoid some of the most common indexing pitfalls. Some of the best guidelines help writers develop concise, specific index entries and enhance the index by double-posting entries, using meaningful cross-references, finding the right balance (not over-indexing or under-indexing), and editing the index.
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Summary: A good basic text for initiating a style guide
Review: While I agree with another reviewer that this book is boring, I'm not convinced that a guideline for how to set up a style guide is supposed to be sexy, exciting reading. The book does a credible job of discussing the basics and goes into excruciating detail on the mechanics such as punctuation and capitalization. The focus on words commonly used in the computer industry differentiates it from Strunk & White and other books on grammar and elements of style. For a new tech writing department just starting out with a need for "rules" and guilelines, I recommend this book.
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