The Win32 Programmer's Reference uses the following document conventions.
| Convention | Description |
| monospace | Indicates source code, structure syntax, examples, user input, and program output. For example: ptbl->SortTable(pSort, TBL_BATCH); |
| Bold | Indicates a function, structure, macro, interface, method, data type, or other keyword in Win32, the OLE application programming interface, C, or C++. |
| Italic | Indicates placeholders, most often function or method parameters; these placeholders stand for information that must be supplied by the implementation or the user. In addition, italics are used to highlight the first use of terms and to emphasize meaning. |
| UPPERCASE | Indicates flags, return values, and properties. In addition addition to standard C-language conventions, uppercase letters indicate filenames, segment names, registers, and terms used at the operating-system command level. |
| [ ] | Indicates optional syntax items. Type only the syntax within the brackets, not the brackets themselves. |
Note The interface syntax in this book follows the variable-naming convention known as Hungarian notation, invented by the programmer Charles Simonyi. Variables are prefixed with lowercase letters that indicate their data type. For example, lpszProfileName is a long pointer to a zero-terminated string name ProfileName. For more information about Hungarian notation, see Programming Windows 95 by Charles Petzold.