Editorium Update

In the publishing house where I used to work, we experimented with what I call “paperless proofreading.” A previous newsletter explains the concept:

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In our shop, when a book is ready to go to press, we create a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file from QuarkXPress, and that’s what we send to the printer. But before sending the book off, we print it out on paper and review the pages to make sure that they’re numbered correctly, that the running heads are right, and so on. (We actually have quite a checklist.)

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If you do paperless proofreading (as described in the newsletter for May 14), you’ve probably bumped into some of the same problems I’ve had with comparing documents (Tools > Track Changes > Compare Documents) and merging documents (Tools > Merge Documents). In particular, sometimes I’ll go to compare two documents and get the following message:

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Last week’s article on paperless proofreading explained how to use Word’s Reviewing toolbar to review revisions in a merged document. It’s a great tool except for one thing: the need to locate and click those tiny toolbar buttons for every revision you want to find, accept, or reject. Wouldn’t it be nice to use the same commands from the keyboard? Here’s how:

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I started in the publishing business as a proofreader, reading type set in hot metal on a Linotype machine. I’d compare the type against the edited manuscript and mark any discrepancies. Then back the type would go for corrections, with additional cycles of proofreading and corrections until the type was error free.

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There you are, editing somebody’s book in Microsoft Word.

If you were working 20 years ago, you’d be editing on paper. After you finished, a typesetter would retype the entire manuscript (including your changes) by hand and run out typeset galleys. Then you’d assign a proofreader to check the typesetter’s work against your edited manuscript. But today, after being edited in Microsoft Word, the manuscript will *not* be retyped. In fact, it will *become* the typeset galleys. So what’s the point of proofreading the galleys against the edited manuscript?

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