A BLOG FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

If the thought of punctuating your novel’s dialogue brings you out in a sweat, let me mop your brow with these 7 tips.

In this article, we'll look at the following:
​

1. How to indicate speech
2. Creating pauses and trail-offs
3. Showing interruptions
4. How to punctuate tagged speech
5. Working with broken-up dialogue
6. Handling vocative expressions
7. Dealing with faltering speech

If you prefer watching to reading, there's a complementary video series on my YouTube channel that covers each of the 7 sections in turn. 

1. Indicating speech
Quotation marks – or speech marks – are how authors usually indicate the spoken word. There are two choices – singles or doubles. Either are acceptable.
 
In US fiction publishing it’s more common to use doubles; in British fiction singles dominate. That doesn’t mean you must use doubles if you’re an American author or singles if you’re a British author. It’s not about right or wrong but about style, preference and convention.
 
Think about what your reader will expect to see and what’s standard where you live. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) recommends doubles, but acknowledges that the convention is for singles in the UK and elsewhere.
 
The most important thing is to be consistent and never use two single quotation marks instead of a double.
 
The following passages from published works illustrate each style:

Nested quotation marks
Sometimes you’ll need to place speech within speech (or quotes within quotes). To differentiate the speaker, use the alternate style for your internal or nested quotation marks:

Smart vs unidirectional marks
It’s conventional in mainstream publishing to use smart or curly quotation marks, not unidirectional ones. (The same applies to apostrophes, by the way.)

Some online fonts (like the one I use for the body text on my website) don’t do a good job of differentiating smart and unidirectional quotation marks, but word-processing software like Microsoft Word does – even with sans serif fonts.
 
To prevent the problem occurring from the minute you begin typing:
 

• Go to FILE and select OPTIONS
• Select PROOFING, then click on the AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS button
• Choose the AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE tab
• Make sure there’s a tick in the "STRAIGHT QUOTES" WITH “SMART QUOTES” box
• Click on OK

 
If you’ve pasted material into your book from elsewhere, or you didn’t check autocorrect options before you began typing, there might be some rogue unidirectional marks in your file. To change them quickly, do a global find/replace:
 

• Select CTRL+H on your keyboard to open FIND AND REPLACE
• Type a quotation mark into the FIND WHAT box
• Type the same quotation mark into the REPLACE WITH box
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button

Alternative speech-indicator marks
An alternative way of displaying speech is via the em dash. This method can get messy if you have more than two speakers in a conversation, so use it with care.

The em is the longest in the dash suite. In the image below (1) is a hyphen, (2) is an en dash and (3) is the em dash.

Sylvain Neuvel uses this technique in Sleeping Giants, the first book in the hugely enjoyable Themis Files series.
 
While some chapters in the novel use standard quotation marks, most are case-file chapters that are entirely composed of dialogue between a known character and an agent who plays a key part in the story but remains anonymous and elusive to us throughout.
 
Each speaker’s turn is indicated with an em dash. The agent’s speech is rendered in bold.
 
If Neuvel had chosen the standard route, he’d have been forced to use clunky speech tags such as ‘the agent said’, and even reveal the agent’s gender to mix things up a little. Instead, the chapters are compelling, mysterious, but cleanly and tightly delivered.
 
Here’s an excerpt from p. 104:

​Same speaker; new paragraph
One final word on quotation marks. If you want your dialogue to take a new paragraph while retaining the current speaker, use a quotation mark at start of the new line but omit the closing one at the end of the previous paragraph.
 
This example from Jo Nesbo’s The Bat (p. 251) illustrates the convention:

2. Trailing-off and pauses in speech
The ellipsis is used to indicate a pause or speech trailing-off at the end of a sentence.
Here’s an excerpt from At Risk (p. 434) by Stella Rimington:

Notice how Rimington doesn’t also tell us that the character’s voice has trailed off, which would be unnecessary clutter. Here’s how it might have gone if she hadn’t trusted the ellipsis to do its job and her readers to understand that:
 
     She shook her head, her eyes unfocused. Then, draining her pint glass, she nudged it towards him. ‘Could you …?’ Jean said, her voice trailing off.
     ‘Yeah, sure.’
 
Here are examples from Sleeping Giants (p. 204) and At Risk (p. 434) where an ellipsis is used to indicate a mid-sentence pause:

The spacing of ellipses
CMOS asks for three full stops (or periods) separated by non-breaking spaces (1). Non-breaking spaces stop the elements they’re positioned between from becoming separated because of a line break.

​You can create one using your keyboard with the keys CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE. However, once again that’s a style choice. It’s perfectly acceptable to use the tighter single ellipsis character in Word (2).

The Unicode character for the ellipsis is 2026. To access it, go to the INSERT tab in Word’s ribbon, select SYMBOL, then MORE SYMBOLS.

Make sure the font is set to normal text (3) before you type the code into the character-code box (4).

From here on in, when you click on SYMBOL the ellipsis will show up in the list of recently used symbols. If you’re using a professional editor, you can ask them to ensure that your ellipses are rendered correctly, though it’s something most pros would check as a matter of course.
 
CMOS also recommends the following:
 

• Ellipsis occurring mid-sentence: space either side
• Ellipsis occurring at the beginning of a sentence: space after
• Ellipsis occurring at the end of a sentence: space before

 
Professional publishers use this style, and I recommend that self-publishers follow suit.

3. End-of-line interruptions in speech
To indicate that a speaking character has been interrupted, use an em dash. No matter whether you’re publishing in US or UK style, this is the tool of choice.
 
It’s a harder piece of punctuation and does a superb job of indicating emotions like impatience, curtness, disbelief, rudeness, frustration and anger on the part of the interrupting speaker.
 
Here’s a fast-paced conversation between Louisa and Min in Mick Herron’s Dead Lions (p. 115):

This use of the em dash keeps the dialogue moving at a fast pace.
 
Like Rimington, Herron doesn’t tell it twice. There are no cluttering speech tags or repetitive explanations that tell us how each speaker interrupted the other. The pace cracks like a whip and we’re offered an authentic back-and-forth.
 
Here’s one more example from Linwood Barclay’s Parting Shot (p. 380). It shows how the em dash evokes a sense of impatience from the speaker who cuts in:

4. Punctuating tagged speech
Your character’s just spoken a complete sentence, and you want to follow through with a tag that tells the reader who said what (e.g. he said, she said). How does the punctuation work before the closing quotation mark at the end of the sentence?
 
The comma does the job, even when the sentence is complete, unless you’re finishing with an exclamation mark or a question mark. If there’s no tag following the dialogue, you can use a full stop.

Here are some examples from Parting Shot (p. 80) to show you how it works:

Note that when you follow up with second- or third-person speech tags (you said/he said/she said/they said) they always take lower case, whether the punctuation before the closing quotation mark is a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation mark.

5. Punctuating broken-up dialogue
If you want to break up your dialogue with speech tags or other stage direction, but your character hasn’t finished speaking, commas or dashes will help you keep your dialogue in order. The key is to get the punctuation right in the text between the dialogue too.
 
Let’s look at two more examples, both from The Chosen Ones by Howard Linskey (pp. 295, 306):

The unbroken speech would appear as ‘I assume that this is not the place.’ and ‘Then he gets nothing and he won’t be able to use it, will he?’

Nevertheless, it is conventional within most mainstream publishing companies to add a comma before the first closing quotation mark and after the speech tag. These commas act as parentheses.

If your dialogue is broken with description rather than speech tags, dashes can offer more clarity than commas. If you’re sticking to CMOS style, closed-up em dashes will be your choice. If you prefer the shorter en dash, place spaces around either side of it.
​
Here’s an example from CMOS (6.87) using closed-up em dashes:

And here’s how it would look using spaced en dashes and single quotation marks if you were following UK publishing convention:

6. Punctuating vocative expressions in dialogue
A vocative expression is one where the person being addressed is directly referred to in a sentence. It needn’t be someone’s name; it could be a form of address that relates to their job or position, one that’s a term of respect (or disrespect).

​Commas are required for clarity.
 

• If the vocative expression comes at the beginning of the sentence, place a comma after it.
• If the vocative expression comes at the end of the sentence, place a comma before it.
• If the vocative expression interrupts a sentence, place a comma before and after it.

 
Here are some examples:

Punctuating vocative expressions incorrectly can lead to ambiguity. Compare the following examples of dialogue. Notice how the missing comma changes the meaning from expressions of address to instructions to carry out acts of violence!

7. Indicating faltering speech
If your character is out of breath, taken aback, caught off guard, frightened, or nervous, you might want to indicate faltering speech with punctuation.
 
There are no absolute rules about how you do this because it depends on the effect you want to achieve.
 

• For softer faltering where full words are repeated, try ellipses. They moderate the rhythm.
• For sharper faltering where the character stumbles over syllables, try hyphens. They provide a more staccato rhythm.
• For elongated faltering where the speaker is struggling to start a word and then takes a breath to compose themselves, a combination of repeated letters followed by ellipses could work.

 
Here’s how Sophie Hannah does it in one of her Hercule Poirot continuation novels, Closed Casket (p. 165):

And here’s a made-up example showing a more staccato faltering:

And here’s how Sylvain Neuvel handles scientist Marina Antoniou in Waking Gods (p. 103). This character consistently struggles with her speech so Neuvel uses a combo of repeated letters to elongate the starting consonants, followed by ellipses to show her process of forcing out the remainder of her words.
 
His approach is unconventional but it imparts an authentic sense of Antoniou fighting with her voice:

​
Use common sense with your speech tags. If you’ve made it obvious from the punctuation that the character’s speech is faltering, you needn’t tell the reader twice:
 
     ‘No. I-I-I mean not really. It was an accident. I just s-s-saw him standing there and I kinda flipped,’ Jack stammered.
 
If your character has a stammer, by all means use these tools to indicate it here and there but don’t feel compelled to litter the dialogue with it. Readers have good memories; nudges are enough. Overdo it and you risk dulling the writing and making your reader frustrated.
 
That’s it! Happy dialogue punctuating!

Cited sources

• At Risk by Stella Rimington. Arrow, 2015
• Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah. Harper, 2017
• Dead Lions by Mick Herron. John Murray, 2017
• Parting Shot by Linwood Barclay. Orion, 2017
• Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. Penguin, 2016
• Sleeping in the Ground by Peter Robinson. Hodder & Stoughton, 2018
• The Bat by Jo Nesbo. Vintage, 2013
• The Chicago Manual of Style (Online)
• The Chosen Ones by Howard Linskey. Penguin, 2018
• The Fix by David Baldacci. Pan Books, 2017
• Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel. Penguin, 2017

PerfectIt is the premier consistency-checking software for many professional editors and proofreaders around the world. Developer Daniel Heuman and I sat down for a chat about what's new!

So Daniel was in New York, and I was in a tiny hamlet in Norfolk called Panxworth. Despite the 6,000 miles between us, the construction works going on outside his apartment, and the internet-connection problems in my somewhat rural neck of the woods, we managed to produce a video of our chinwag!

​For those of you who want to jump to specific parts of the conversation, here are the key themes and associated time stamps:

​▶️ Louise introduces Daniel Heuman, developer of PerfectIt: 00:00:00
▶️ What PerfectIt does and why it’s useful: 00:00:24
▶️ PerfectIt Cloud – the new solution for Mac users: 00:04:08
▶️ Windows users: Should we buy PerfectIt Cloud?: 00:06:12
▶️ The subscription model and a new lower price: 00:09:27
▶️ The benefits of up-to-date editing kit: Stability and support: 00:12:27
▶️ PerfectIt and Office 2016: 00:14:54
▶️ PerfectIt 4: Online, in the cloud, or both? 00:18:35
▶️ Features of PerfectIt 4: 00:20:24
▶️ Sign-off: 00:25:44

​And below is the conversation in full. Click on the Play button to begin listening. I've included subtitles in case you need to turn the sound off or can't understand our British accents!

There's a full transcript below. I've edited this for readability but essentially it's the words as they were spoken on the day.

THE VIDEO

​THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Louise introduces Daniel Heuman
LH: My name is Louise Harnby and I’m a fiction editor, and today I’m going to be talking to the founder of Intelligent Editing and the developer of a piece of software beloved by many editors all over the world. And that’s PerfectIt.
 
Before Daniel and I start chatting about all the PerfectIt news, Daniel’s going to tell us a little bit about what PerfectIt does, because some of you might not know. So over to you Daniel!

What PerfectIt does and why it’s useful
DH: Thank you! It’s lovely to speak to you! This is very exciting. I don’t know that they’ve ever done a video interview like this before so thank you! OK. PerfectIt – for the people who have not come across it before (which is probably exactly who won’t be watching this, but hopefully they are!)
 
LH: You never know!
 
DH: You never know! Exactly! So PerfectIt is mostly consistency-checking software, and the key place where it comes in is that when you’re editing work it’s almost always under, you know, time pressure, and with a pressure to produce perfect work.
 
It’s ultimately dealing with the fact that everything is going to be on a budget. So given a limited time, what is the best document you can produce? And PerfectIt really fits in there. It saves time; it helps you edit faster.
 
And the way I was trying to explain it the other day was at the ACES conference. I have new way of explaining it ... I thought a little bit about what gets people into editing. And I think that without delving into the deep psychology of what makes anyone an editor, I think one of the things that does not drive people is the difference between tiny consistency mistakes.
 
So, yes, it’s fun sometimes when you spot ‘e-mail’ with a hyphen in one place and not in another but mostly that’s not what’s driving people. People get into editing because you care about words, you like reading, you care about communication, you want to explain stories, you want to help people connect better with readers.
 
And these little tiny mistakes that take so much time to spot are not the reason. They are a distraction. They’re significant because they jump out at readers but they’re not the reason why we get into this. And they’re certainly not the reason why one should be spending a lot of time on a document.
 
LH: And you’re so right because they take so long to deal with. I’ve had manuscripts before where, actually, particularly if an author’s got a budget, people like me are spending perhaps hours and hours and hours when we’re using just our eyes, dealing with these tiny inconsistencies, which as you say are red flags.
 
And, yet, actually what we want to do is immerse ourselves in the narrative in front of us and to make it better. And the more time we can spend focusing on the flow of the words ... because every time you come across a hyphen that’s inconsistent, or inconsistent capitalization, as an editor, you’re dragged out of the flow of the work as well.
 
And so being able to do that, to save time by having a piece of software like PerfectIt to do that for you is just wonderful. And you still get the pleasure of knowing that you’re bringing this consistency to the work. But it is back-breaking doing that manually. I think that’s the thing that a lot of editors feel. It’s just back-breaking work.
 
And I would rather an author paid me to do other things with my time. I want them to feel that I’m going to do those things but I don’t want to have to spend more time than necessary doing it, and that’s where your software comes in.
 
DH: Absolutely, and we put on the homepage something like: you spend the time on what matters most, which is your words and their meaning.
 
LH: Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly it.

PerfectIt Cloud – the solution for Mac user
LH: So, Daniel, in the past, PerfectIt’s only been available to Windows users.
 
Well, that’s not quite true. I do have Mac-using friends who have been able to use PerfectIt but they have to be running something like Parallels, or I think it’s called VM Fusion Ware or something. Or they’ve had to go buy a cheap Windows laptop.
 
So I suppose that’s the thing that everybody’s talking about. Like, what’s new for Mac users?
 
DH: That is the news! So first off, it’s been touching and amazing, the extent to which people have been going to use PerfectIt.
 
Like you say, they’ve been installing Parallels. People have been buying computers to run this program, which is touching. I know that buying another computer doesn’t cost as much as it used to but, still. But for Mac users who hate Windows and just run it for one program has been phenomenal to see. But yes, no longer!
 
So we are producing PerfectIt Cloud, which is ... you’re going to have to forgive ... in the background you can probably hear the construction noise! I’ll do my best to speak over it. So we’re producing PerfectIt Cloud, which is an Office Store add-in.
 
And the great thing about Office Store add-ins is that they are compatible in any version of Office 2016. So if you are on a Mac, if you’re on a PC, if you’re on an iPad, even in Word Online (which I don’t know that anyone actually uses), no matter which version you’re on, you see the same add-in. So the functionality is exactly the same across.
 
And we’ve been developing this for ... I mean, you know, the amount of times people have heard me saying, ‘A Mac version is coming soon. It’s just a few months. It’s just a few months.’
 
But, no, as of 26 June we will have PerfectIt Cloud, which brings compatibility to Mac and to iPad for the very first time. So it’s really exciting!

Windows users: Should we buy PerfectIt Cloud?
LH: So what about Windows users? I have PerfectIt 3. I’ve had all the versions since it first launched. I work on a PC. Should I rush out and get PerfectIt Cloud?
 
DH: In a word, no. So the introduction of PerfectIt Cloud is primarily for Mac and iPad users at this stage. So if you’re using PerfectIt 3, if you’ve got a Windows PC, that’s still going to be the best version that we offer.
 
And it’s going to be strange because PerfectIt Cloud looks so much better! The interface is even easier than it was before. It’s a beautiful product, but underneath there are a few things that PerfectIt 3 can do that we haven’t been able to do for Cloud yet.
 
So the most important one of those is customization of styles. That’s still going to take some time to bring into PerfectIt Cloud. The ability to check footnotes – we’re going to be dependent on Microsoft for them to make some changes before we can bring that in.
 
So if you have PerfectIt 3, if you have a PC, in most cases the thing to do is not to rush out, and not to buy this at least until we produce a new version for the PC, which will be PerfectIt 4.
 
There’s one exception, which is, you know, all those people who ... the ones, the amazing wonderful users that you’ve described who have gone and bought VMware, and Parallels, and even separate computers.
 
A bunch of those users are really frustrated with having to turn them on every time, and going through Windows updates, which take forever. And just to get PerfectIt up and running takes two hours. And it’s saving them a lot of time so they do it, but if you’re one of those people who has both a PC and a Mac, in those cases, yes, you would.
 
Not all the options are included but it’s close enough that you may not want to be uploading and updating your Windows computer each time just to run PerfectIt.
 
LH: Yeah, and I suppose also for people perhaps who are, I don’t know ... I was thinking about the increasing number of editors who are location-independent. And, actually, maybe they don’t always have the latest ... you know, they’re don't want to be worried if their computers break ... and the idea perhaps of just knowing that it doesn’t matter which PC you’re on, or which Mac you’re on, that if you’ve got something, a machine in front of you, you can do your work and you can access the core functionality of PerfectIt wherever you are.
 
And that’s an important thing, I guess. I mean, I’m not location- independent. I am very much dependent! I’m in Norfolk with a rubbish broadband speed and so I’m kind of quite keen to keep things offline and local when I can. But knowing that I’ve got the choice – that will be a big issue for me.

The subscription model and a new lower price
LH: Can we talk about price now? Because in the past, once every two or three years, you bring out a new version, and I’ve paid you, I don’t know, $90? I can’t remember the price off the top of my head. So that’s the way it’s worked. But you’re doing things slightly differently now, aren’t you?
 
DH: Yes. So we are switching to a subscription ... sort of a subscription.
 
And I know the minute I use that word people are turning off this video, don’t want to know anything more. because everyone is sick to death of subscriptions with, you know, Netflix and Amazon, and, oh my God, you can get a subscription for your vegetable delivery now, which is bonkers!
 
But I think what we’re doing is really different to that. We switched to a once-a-year payment. At this point at least, there’s no handover-your-credit- card or anything like that. You pay each year if you want to continue using it.
 
And switching to that kind of model means we can drop the price by a lot. So instead of being a $99 one-off purchase, we’ve made it $70 per year.
 
And on top of that, we’ve really dropped the price for, you know, independent editors. So we’ve worked with as many of the editing societies around the world as we can – certainly all the big ones – to have a kind of a discount.
 
And that’s going to be an additional 30%, so the price is going to be just $49 per year for independent editors who are, you know, a member of any of the big editing societies anywhere in the world.
 
So subscriptions mean we can get down the price down a lot, and they mean we can create a really compelling, simple offer, which is that you will buy PerfectIt and then you will get any version you want on any number of devices you want, and not pay a separate charge, which I think is really what bothers a lot of people.
 
So you buy PerfectIt and you can install the PC version on your PC, you can install the Cloud version on your iPad. You only pay once for that and you don’t get stuck with that additional charge you described, which was the upgrade charge.
 
So, yes, we used to have a one-off price but people liked this product and much more than 60% of people paid the upgrade price anyway. So, really, there was a hidden recurring element.
 
And by switching to ... we can call it a subscription, we’ve made everything included in that price very transparent. And you get all the upgrades, you get all the updates, you get support. So I think the way we’ve switched the pricing is really gonna be attractive, and especially attractive for independent editors.
 
The benefits of up-to-date editing kit: Stability and support
LH: I think it’s wonderful because, I mean, I’m a big fan of the subscription model, even with things like Microsoft Office, because I’m a professional, I want the latest software, and I want it to work in an environment that’s stable as well. And so I like having the most up-to-date version of Word.
 
I had a situation a few years back when I first plonked a download of Windows 10 on my Windows 8, or Windows 7 computer or something, and I was trying to get PerfectIt to operate in an environment basically with two operating systems, and guess what? It wasn’t happy.
 
And so at that point ... because PerfectIt was key to my editorial day-to-day working, it was one of the things that triggered me to actually think, ‘You know what? You need to get yourself an up-to-date computer with the latest operating system already installed, so it's not fighting with anything else.’
 
And to know now that I’m always going to be running the latest edition of Word on the latest operating system and that the plugins that fit into that software, like PerfectIt, are going to be the latest editions too ... for me, that’s just one less worry.
 
It means that I can get on doing the business of editing rather than thinking, ‘I want to be able to do X, Y or Z but I can’t because it’s broken.’
 
And so I’m really excited about this because, as you say, it’s upfront, it’s clear, everybody knows what they’re gonna pay and what they’re getting.
 
And you mentioned something there as well, and that was the issue of support. Because in days past, it was the case that if you decided to stick with an older version of PerfectIt you wouldn’t have access to you.
 
And sometimes, you know when you get stuck on things, you just want to be able to ask the person who actually really knows the answer. It’s not guesswork. And knowing that that’s always going to be ... you get the full package. So I’m really excited about it. I think it’s a really good deal.
 
I think the price is a steal as well. And for those of us who are members of professional societies, what a perk of membership to know that you can get one of your core pieces of editing software at such a huge discount! Thank you!
 
DH: Yeah, those societies and the editors within them are absolutely the reason why we are where we are today. That’s been the core of this business so now I absolutely think that it’s important to support them.
 
PerfectIt and Office 2016
DH: And I agree with you completely about thinking about Office and updates that way.
 
I know that a lot of editors have been disappointed when we’ve said that PerfectIt Cloud is only gonna work in Office 2016. And they said, ‘Well, I’m never moving to Office 2016 because I’ve heard all these terrible things about it.’
 
And I just wonder every time I hear that ... I think, I know those stories are true – when you have a piece of software like Microsoft that is installed everywhere then you always are going to have some things that don’t work and that are gonna get on Facebook. And they’re gonna look to seek help. And they’re always going to be the ones who have some kind of problem.
 
You never get someone who installs the latest version of Microsoft and says, ‘Yep, that worked’ and tells all their friends.
 
So our perception of these versions has been really sort of distorted by, I think, the relatively lower number of people who have had problems in perspective to the total, in relation to total.
 
And as you say, when you actually look at the package and what Microsoft are offering, I think it’s really good. And I’m fortunate that I’ve never had any sort of problems with it. I’ve used Word on the iPad, I use Word on the PC. I think they’ve done a really good job of making those two similar and in line. In the past, there’s been big differences between those things.
 
You know, I was able to switch as a long-time PC-user to the iPad version. I had no trouble doing that. And they do it at a low monthly price. And what I’ve sort of been saying to anyone who’s asked about it is something like, yes, there are some users who’ve had problems, and there have doubtless been lots of glitches, and there always are with endless Microsoft updates, but what about trying it for one month? They offer a monthly price. And see if it works for you.
 
And you’ve got your old version and you can always go back, but those old versions, they’re at this point ... you know, Microsoft has stopped supporting Office 2011 anyway, so we’re out of that period really.
 
Yeah, I think I think as you say, the package they’re offering is very good, and especially the kind of value in the monthly offer. It makes a lot of sense.
 
LH: Yeah, and I think the other thing to mention is that, you know, I think sometimes there are people in, well, not just the editing community but all sorts of communities who are trying to run say 2016, or with all the updates, 2018 software but on decade-old computers.
 
And that’s a bit like taking your mobile phone to medieval times and complaining you haven’t got signal!
 
You know, we need as editors to be, I think, working with the latest equipment. Within a budget, of course. Most of us aren’t rich. But I always think, get the best RAM you can ... get the best processor you can for your money.
 
And then things like PerfectIt, within Word, within Microsoft Office, will work the best for you.
 
DH: Absolutely! And we all make these mistakes! I’ve been screaming at my printer all morning and pressing over and over again, and wasting so much time trying to get this printer to work.
 
And I know the reason why it doesn’t work – it’s because it’s really old, and would cost next to nothing to replace.
 
But, you know, we’re old enough to remember that these things used to be very expensive, and it’s so difficult to get rid of them. But, actually, you know, when running a business, to spend my morning yelling at a printer is probably not the best use of my time!
 
PerfectIt 4: Online, in the cloud, or both?
LH: So can I just check something with you? Can we talk then about the next version of PerfectIt that will be also usable locally?
 
So we’ve got PerfectIt Cloud but there’ll come a point I’m assuming when there’ll be the next version, like PerfectIt 4 that will be in the cloud. Will that also be something that someone like me who’s got a little bit of an iffy broadband connection can, if they want to, download to their computer?
 
DH: Oh, so we are NOT moving to the cloud in any way, shape or form. We’re doing very much that kind of approach that Microsoft has gone for where you pay once and you have different parallel versions for different devices.
 
We are not switching to the cloud. There will always be a local version. As I said earlier, it’s still kind of the best version for a number of reasons.
 
And so at the moment, if you get a subscription, you will get PerfectIt 3 and PerfectIt Cloud, and as of the end of this year you’ll get PerfectIt 4 and PerfectIt Cloud.
 
And we’ll keep the two in parallel so that they’re running off ultimately the same code, so that you’ll get the update for PerfectIt 4 locally, and at the same time, almost at the same time, we will update PerfectIt Cloud automatically, and they’ll offer the same checking.
 
LH: OK, great, that’s good. I just wanted to be sure of that because ... just because my broadband is a bit of a nightmare here!
 
DH: No, no, I don’t think we communicated that properly in our in our literature so it’s a really good question to ask. I’m sure a lot of people will be concerned about that.
 
Features of PerfectIt 4
LH: So can we talk about ... do you have any specific plans for what will be new with PerfectIt 4 yet, or can we suggest things?
 
DH: Well, obviously, I’m going to dodge that question because the trouble with that question is that if I start saying we’ve got plans for PerfectIt 4, that we’re working on ... I suspect if I start saying the things that I’m working on, the disappointment that will follow when we say we’ve failed ... [laughing].
 
But I like the idea of suggestions. As I said, this business has very much been built by support from editors, and feedback from editors.
 
So if we wind the clock like all the way back to the first time that I was at SfEP conference, I remember someone mentioning en dashes and and why they could be in the hyphenation-consistency check.
 
And let’s let’s be honest, at that point, which was been ten years ago or so, I didn’t understand the significance of that. Why would we need to be looking for en dashes and hyphenation? What’s the point?
 
And actually it was that feedback which we then took on. And it got quite a few people explaining and saying, well, actually, this is the error that we’re looking for. This is what comes up. It’s really difficult to spot because of this. Is there anything you can do?
 
And I think it was in PerfectIt 2 but certainly in PerfectIt 3. And we’ve built in an en dash versus spaced-hyphen consistency check.
 
LH: And em dashes too.
 
DH: Yes, the way we do the checking for those is a little different but, yeah, it ultimately came down to the same reason, which is editors suggesting that these were the things that they wanted to see.
 
And I’d love to get those suggestions for PerfectIt 4. So, particularly ...
 
LH: I’m thinking legal and medical might be obvious.
 
DH: Yes, legal. I’ve got a long, long list of changes that we want to make for legal, but medical, pharmaceutical scientific ... I know we have a lot of editors working in those kinds of fields and I feel like we haven’t done as much for them as we should and could.
 
So I’d love to get suggestions from every kind of editor, but especially those ones would be really good, because we need to do more in that area.
 
LH: And speaking as a fiction editor as well, I think there are certain functions I’m using ... the possibilities are there but there are certainly things I could think of in terms of the similar-word-find function that maybe even we could put forward some suggestions that might help you to push that stuff further forward, and help us to adapt the style sheets more so that we could get more benefits in that field too.
 
And I’ll certainly be thinking if there’s anything else from a fiction point of view that I can push your way.
 
DH: Definitely. You know, we always get a nonfiction writer saying, ‘Can this be used for nonfiction too?’ We get fiction writers saying, ‘Can it be used for fiction?’ And we hadn’t been quite communicated clear enough that, yes, it’s for all of those things.
 
And, yeah, the similar-words function. Lots of people are using that for character names. Can we improve that? Can we make it clearer that that’s a possibility for character names? Can we look and see if there are ways of improving that?
 
And already you have got me talking about features that I swore just two seconds ago I wouldn’t get into! Some of those things people are really gonna be telling me, ‘But you promised, but you promised!’
 
I will avoid saying more about that but I am excited by that kind of change and by doing things that are specific to different kinds of editing, for sure.
 
LH: I think from my point of view as an editor, and for people who are watching this who haven’t tried PerfectIt yet, knowing that you’re responsive to ways in which you can develop the software is a really important thing to emphasize, because the various iterations that I’ve used over the years have just got better and better. And that means I’ve saved more and more time.

And so I want to say to people that when you invest in this software you are working with a company and a business owner who will listen to you, and that's a good thing.
 
DH: Thank you! And my guess is that at this point in the video, between the dogs barking outside and the helicopter going overhead, anyone who is completely new to this software will probably have stopped watching 20 minutes ago!
 
But, yes, anyone with us longer hopefully has experienced that we are ... it’s actually the other way around. It’s editors who’ve helped build this and made all this stuff possible, so we are absolutely listening, and will continue to iterate and improve.
 
If we improve the product for actual editors, everyone else who uses the software benefits. And, you know, we really have the best people in the world advising us, so I think it’s fantastic.

Sign-off
LH: Daniel, thanks very much! That’s been really, really useful. So I’m excited about ... not just the cloud but also PerfectIt 4 coming out. I’m excited that I’m going to be able to use it on multiple platforms, in different spaces. I’m excited that I’m going to be able to get it cheaper than I did last year!
 
So thanks for taking the time to talk to me. It’s been brilliant.
 
DH: Thank you! And thank you for all the support through all the years.
 
The excitement and enthusiasm is so encouraging after we’ve been telling people, you know, soon, soon just another month, just another couple of months. Now that it’s done, now this here, it’s fantastic! Thank you.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Have proofreading symbols passed their use-by date? It’s a controversial question, but one that we definitely need to ponder. So, as an unconventional ‘celebration’ of 30 years in publishing, Melanie Thompson is setting out to answer this question – and she needs your help ...

Over to Melanie ...

​A few months ago a colleague asked me whether (UK-based) clients want proofreaders to use British Standard proofreading symbols or whether they prefer mark-up using Acrobat tools on PDFs.

‘Good question,’ I replied. ‘I hope to be able to answer that later this year.’ That probably wasn’t the answer they were expecting.
 
The widely different expectations of clients who ask for ‘proofreading’ has been niggling at the back of my mind for a couple of years.

What's changed in three decades
I have been a practising proofreader for 30 years, I’ve managed teams of editors and proofreaders, and I’ve been a tutor for newcomers to our industry. Yet I still learn something every time I proofread for a new client.
 
It’s several years since I was last asked to use BS symbols for a ‘live’ project,* but I use them a lot on rough draft print-outs – because they’re so concise and … well, let’s face it, to some extent those symbols are like a secret language that only we ‘professionals’ know. I like to keep my hand in.
 
But proofreading is now a global business activity, and ‘proofreading symbols’ differ around the world – which kind of defeats their original objective.

And now so many of us work on Word files or PDFs (or slides, or banner ads, or websites or … ) and there are other ways of doing things.
 
This all makes daily work for a freelance proofreader a bit more complicated (or interesting (if challenges float your boat). We might be working for a local business one day and an author in the opposite hemisphere the next.

It’s rare, but not unheard of, to receive huge packets of page proofs through the mail and to have to rattle around in the desk drawer to find your long-lost favourite red pen. Usually, however, things tend to arrive by email or through an ftp site or a shared Dropbox folder.

Digital workflows

The ‘digital workflow’ is something we’re now all part of, whether we realize it or not. But clients are at different stages in their adoption (or not) of the latest tools and techniques, and that leaves us proofreaders in an interesting position.

We need to be able to adapt our working practices to suit different clients; ideally, seamlessly. For that, we need to understand what the current processes are, and what clients are planning for the future.
 
And that’s where I need your help.

​A new research project: proofreading2020
I’ve launched a research project, proofreading2020, to investigate proofreading now and where it might be heading.

The study begins with a survey, asking detailed questions about proofreading habits and preferences. Once the results are in, I’ll be conducting follow-up research for case studies and, early in 2019, publishing the results in book form.
 
​You can find out more and complete the survey at proofreading2020. It's open now, and closes on 30 June 2018.
 
Almost 200 proofreaders, project managers and publishers have already completed the survey. Several have contacted me to say it was really useful CPD, because it made them think about how they work and why they do things. So I hope you’ll be willing to set aside a tea-break to fill it in.
 
It takes about 20 minutes to complete, but it’s easy to skip questions that aren’t relevant to you.

​There are only a handful of questions (at the beginning and end) that are compulsory (just the usual demographics and privacy permissions). Beyond that, the sections cover the following:
​

• Proofreader training and qualifications
• Taking/making bookings and negotiating fees
• The materials people proofread (end products and the formats they’re created in)
• Marking up techniques (on paper, on screen, software tools etc.)
• Collating proofs and dealing with queries
• A bit of fun (yes, really!) and sci-fi proofreading

​* If a client does ask for BS symbols, I recommend downloading Louise’s free stamps for use on PDFs – they will save you a lot of time and help you deliver a neat and clear proof.

Melanie Thompson is an Advanced Professional Member of SfEP and an SfEP tutor.

Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Here's a treat for PerfectIt users ... a custom style sheet that includes the find-and-replace strings in my free ebook, The Author's Proofreading Companion.

If the Companion has made your life easier, you'll love what my colleague Andrea Kay of Yours Truleigh Editing has done. Yep, she's upped the efficiency game for all of us by creating a custom style sheet that can be imported into PerfectIt.

Thank you so much, Andrea!

For those unfamiliar with either the software or the booklet, I've provided an overview of both, and the benefits of importing the style sheet.

Andrea's also created a style sheet for the Student Proofreading Toolkit. Double thanks!

Below that are the installation instructions and the ready-to-download files for the Companion and the Toolkit.

​How to import your style sheet
Importing the style sheet is a doddle, I promise, Follow the instructions and screenshots below. If PerfectIt is already installed, the process will take no longer than 20 seconds.

1. Unfortunately, I can't upload the files to Weebly, so I'm using my bot Lulu and delivering via Messenger.

​Click on the green button below. That will take you to a post on my Facebook page. There you can comment with the word 'perfect' and Lulu will send you the files. Click on each one to download to your device.

2. Once you've installed PerfectIt, open the Word document you want to check.
3. Launch PerfectIt.
​4. Click on Manage Styles.

5. Click on the Import button.

6. Select the pft from your device and click OK.

7. Click OK in the Manage Styles window.

8. Select the your pft from the Current Style drop-down box.

9. To run PerfectIt on your current Word document using the custom style sheet, press Start.

If you're not a PerfectIt user ...
If you're not yet ready to invest in PerfectIt but still want access to the find-and-replace strings and other tools in the ebooks, click on the images below. They'll take you to the download pages.

​They're free and you won't have to hand over any personal data to access it. Enjoy!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​If you’re an editor, making Word work hard for you is a must. The new and revised edition of Editing in Word 2016 is one of my recommended resources. Here's why.

I’m a fiction editor who works solely for indie authors and self-publishers. I work on raw-text files, and Microsoft Word is one piece of software that I cannot afford to be without.

Word has its snafus but I don’t know of any word-processing software that comes close to offering its superb functionality. I don’t just edit in Word; I’ve also created print- and digital-ready books directly in it.

So when fellow editor and author Adrienne Montgomerie asked me to review the second edition of Editing in Word 2016, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I’ve been using Word since 1991, so could Montgomerie teach this old dog a few new tricks? How about younger pups?
​
Let’s see ...

More than an ebook
This is a digital self-study course. Yes, you get the ebook with all the contextual information and foundational teaching. But there are also videos that show Word in action, and a bunch of exercises with which to practise what you learn at each stage of the process.

I love the fact that the advice is actionable. You read, you see, you learn, and then you do. There’s no better way to ensure it’s all sunk in.

A focus on core tools

We certainly do. Here are some of the tools that Montgomerie focuses on:

• Track Changes
• Comments
• Spellchecking
• Formatting
• Find and replace
• Styles
• Readability stats
• The equation editor
• Macros – creating, editing, running and using
• Recommended add-ins, plug-ins and apps

If you don’t know 8 out of 10 of the above tools inside out, you’re likely not as efficient or productive as you could be. That alone makes this course a worthy purchase.

That it’s a steal at just under 25 quid (excluding VAT) makes it a no-brainer.

​Let’s dig a little deeper ...

Screens, operating systems and how we work with Word
One of the best things about this course is its acknowledgement that editors work in different ways.

• I like Windows; you like a Mac. No problem.
• I like a ribbon/mouse combo; you like keyboard shortcuts; and he likes Mac menus. All those preferences are incorporated into the instructions.

Top tips
This course is rammed with useful and actionable tips on how to get stuff done and in ways that respect your preferences. For example:

• Pre-editing file preparation
• Different ways to do things: for example, running a macro or using keyboard-shortcuts instead
• Customizing your onscreen work space
• Incorporating additional plug-ins and apps into Word that will make editing even more efficient

And along the way, Montgomerie includes ‘Pro tips’, ‘Read more’ and ‘Troubleshooting’ callouts to keep you on track.

Video demos
I’m a big fan of multimedia learning. And when it comes to editing, sometimes just hearing your tutor’s voice and watching them go through the motions onscreen can trump the written word.

In addition to the ebook, there's a support website with 27 video tutorials for both Mac and Windows users.

This feature is excellent. I’ve come across a lot of editors who’d like to enhance their digital skills but are held back through fear. Montgomerie takes the stress away via accessible walkthroughs that even the most tech-nervous of nellies will be able to follow.

Here are just 3 examples:

• How to record a macro
• Installing an existing third-party macro
• Setting up autocorrect preferences

Practice makes perfect
There are 24 exercises in this course that help you to hone your skills and start doing what’s written in the book and shown in the videos.

Just a few examples include:

• Using autocorrect
• Locking Track Changes
• Language selection
• Comparing documents
• Customizing Word’s ribbon

A note on versions
This course was created in 2017 using Word 365 on Windows 10 and Sierra OS. Given that the author’s using the latest software and operating systems, you might find that the instructions need a little tweaking here and there if you’re using medieval Word (or should that be Wordeth?)!

For example, older versions of Word might have different ribbon displays, icons and menu options.

That’s unavoidable, and a reminder that, as professionals, we should be aspiring to use up-to-date equipment. I’d prefer my dentist not to fill my teeth with 10-year-old composites; we should treat our clients similarly.

My verdict
Did I learn anything new? Yes, I did. But editorial training isn’t just about finding out what you don’t know; it’s also great for affirmation of what you do know. I was pleased to learn from a pro that a lot of my Word usage is on track.

Here’s another thing, though: there are functions in Word that I use infrequently (e.g. erasing time stamps). I know it’s possible but I’ve simply forgotten how.

​And instead of trawling Google or spending valuable time asking questions in editing forums, I can have Editing in Word open on my desktop. From there, I can search, locate and solve my problem in seconds.

I recommend this without reservation for any editor who wants to get the very best from Word with a one-stop shop, especially those who've been held back by fear. Montgomerie will take that away from you – I promise.

Information and access

• Editing in Word 2016, 2nd ed.
• ISBN: 9781775045717
• Author: Adrienne Montgomerie
• Format: PDF 3.62 MB
• Price: £24.93 (excl. VAT)
• Access: Lulu. To get your copy of EIW16, click on the button below

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you think there's no place for macros in fiction editing, think again. My friend Paul Beverley has collated a core group of macros that will have any fiction line editor, copyeditor or proofreader drooling! Self-publishing authors will love them too!

I don't use all of these (every editor has their preferences) but some of them are staples and save me oodles of time! 

Some of the macros apply when you’re looking at the whole text of a novel, while others are selective ... for use while you’re editing line by line. Bear in mind that they're designed to be used with MS Word files.

Macros that work with the whole text
These macros are ideal near the beginning of the edit, when you’ve put together the whole book in one single file, and you want to look for inconsistencies.

ProperNounAlyse searches the novel for any words that look like proper nouns; it counts their frequency, and then tries to locate, by using a variety of tests, and pairs of names that might possibly be alternative spellings or misspellings, e.g. Jayne/Jane, Beverley/Beverly, Neiman/Nieman, Grosman/Grosmann etc.

FullNameAlyse is similar to ProperNounAlyse, but it searches for multi-part names, Fred Smith, Burt Fry, etc.

ChronologyChecker is aimed at tracing the chronology of a novel. It extracts, into a separate file, all the paragraphs containing appropriate chronology-type words: Monday, Wednesday, Fri, Sat, April, June, 1958, 2017, etc. This file is then more easily searchable to look at the significance of the text for the chronology.

WordsPhrasesInContext tracks the occurrence of specific names through a novel. You give it a list of names/words/phrases, and it searches for any paragraphs in the novel that contain them. It creates a separate file of those paragraphs, with the searched element highlighted in your choice of colour.

CatchPhrase searches your novel for over-used phrases and counts how many times each phrase occurs.
​

Macros for when editing line by line
FullPoint/Comma/Semicolon/Colon/Dash/QuestionMark/ExclamationMark
These macros change
he said, you know ...
into he said. You know ... 
​or he said: you know ...
​or he said – you know ...
and so on.

FullPointInDialogue and CommaInDialogue
These two macros change
“Blah, blah.” He said.
into “Blah, blah,” he said.
and vice versa.

ProperToPronoun
This macro looks along the line to find the next proper noun, deletes it and types ‘she’. But if you then type Ctrl-Z, it changes it back to ‘he’.

MultiSwitch
You give this macro a list of changes that you might want to implement:
Jane
Jayne

Beverley
Beverly

that
which

which
that

When you click in a word, and run the macro, it finds your alternate and replaces it. It also works with phrases and can also provide a menu of alternates:

he said
he opined
he shouted
he voiced

she said
she opined
she shouted
she voiced

To access the macro scripts, download Paul's book.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Here's how to convert a Word document into EPUB or MOBI file format. This option certainly won't be for everyone, but if it suits you, you can master it in seconds ... and for free.

Many authors create their books directly in Microsoft Word because of its excellent suite of onboard styling tools and its compatibility with a range of plug-ins and add-ins (including macros). Pro editors love it for the same reasons.

​Once the writing, drafting, editing, and final revisions are complete, it’s time to publish. Is a Word file good enough for epublication? How about a DIY conversion to EPUB or MOBI? It depends on several factors:

• Your freebie plans
• Your budget
• Your sales and distribution platform
• The complexity of your interior design

Editorial assessment and freebies
Perhaps you want to send a review copy to a reader who has a Kindle. Or maybe you want to offer free ebooks for family members and friends. The devices your readers own will determine the required file format. Having your own EPUBs and MOBIs will give you flexibility beyond Word and PDF.

And if you're sending your book file for editorial assessment, your developmental editor might prefer to upload your book to their e-reader. They'll makes notes in the file in preparation for their final report or critique.

Doing the conversion yourself gives you the freedom to distribute your book without having to jump through the distributors’ hoops.

Your budget
How about if you’re making your book available for sale? Should you hire a pro formatter for your ebook interior? Yes, definitely, if you have the budget for it, because a pro formatter will do a pro job. The same applies to commissioning various rounds of professional editing. 

But let’s be honest – not every indie author has deep pockets, and some of you will have to make choices about where to invest your budget. It might be that a DIY conversion will suffice, and in that case Calibre could be your friend.

What is Calibre?
Calibre is free open-source ebook-management software. With it you can convert a Word file to an EPUB or a MOBI.

Go to https://calibre-ebook.com to download and install the software. There are versions for Windows and Mac.

Your sales and distribution platform
Smashwords
If you want to publish via Smashwords, Word is the preferred format. Here's founder Mark Coker:

​Make sure you follow the Smashwords guidelines on preparing your Word file, otherwise your published book will be a mess! Furthermore, you’ll risk not qualifying for inclusion in Smashwords’ premium catalogue, which gets your book in front of some big online retailers including:

• Apple iBooks store
• Baker & Taylor
• Barnes & Noble
• Flipkart
• Kobo
• OverDrive
• Oyster
• Scribd

If your interior is complex, Smashwords will accept EPUB files but they should be professionally designed. There’s further guidance in the Smashwords Style Guide.

Kindle Direct Publishing/Amazon
If you’re self-publishing via KDP, Amazon will create a MOBI for you from your word file. The same principles apply: as long as you follow the formatting instructions to the tee, and your book interior is straightforward, Word will suffice. Here’s where to access KDP’s  Simplified eBook Formatting Guide.

If your interior is more sophisticated, I’d advise you to hire a pro. Neither a Word file nor the DIY Calibre conversion offered in this article will do the job to a high enough standard.

Direct sales
If you’re selling direct from your own author platform, you can offer a PDF. But that’s not what every customer wants. PDFs look fabulous on tablets but awful on e-readers. If your customer wants something different, and you want to maximize sales opportunities, you’ll need another option. Calibre could be the solution.

The complexity of your interior design
​​If you have a primarily text-based Word file that will tolerate a simple heading structure for titles, part titles and chapters – as is often the case for fiction and narrative non-fiction – this quick-conversion method could work well for you.

If your interior design is more complex, I strongly recommend you commission a professional formatter (some editors also have formatting skills) to do the job on your behalf.

In my test, which involved a non-fiction Word file with multiple heading levels, a contents list, boxes, images and other design features, the conversion results for EPUB and MOBI were far from perfect, though I did find solutions when I was prepared to compromise.

Here’s how I messed up ... so you don’t have to.

​If you still think your Word document fits the bill, here's how to create your EPUB or MOBI file.

How to do the quick conversion
Open your Word document and save it as an rtf (Rich Text Format) using the Save As function (select Rich Text Format from the drop-down menu). Close the file and head over to Calibre.

Click on the Add books icon and select your rtf. ​

The file will upload to Calibre. Make sure your book file is highlighted, then click on the Convert books icon.

Now you can select and edit the metadata:

• The type of file you wish to create – I’ve chosen EPUB in this example (yellow box)
• The bibliographic details (green box)
• And your cover image (red box). Use the scroll bar (blue arrow) to scroll down and change the image file

Click OK. In the bottom-right-hand corner you’ll see the Jobs icon whirring.

When the conversion is complete, click on the new file format to check that all is well.

This will open the E-book viewer, and it’s one of Calibre’s top features because you can see at a glance what your reader will be looking at.

If you’re happy with your interior, save your converted file to your computer. It’s ready for upload and distribution.

Summing up
If you have a straightforward interior that’s text-based, this quickie Calibre conversion is absolutely worth experimenting with. And it’s free, so even if things don’t go to plan you won’t have lost any money – you’ll just have learned the basics of a new tool that you might be able to take advantage of another time.

​Poor formatting will earn you nothing but frustrated customers and bad reviews, so:

• Check the output on your own device before you offer it to the world!
• After you've uploaded your ebook to a third-party platform, check it again!

​
If your interior is complex, don't even think about using the method outlined here. Work with a pro. Professional eformatting isn’t a service I offer but I’m more than happy to put you in touch with colleagues who can help.

Drop me a line via my contact page or comment here on the blog.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

The latest from the Macro Chat column by editor Paul Beverley ... In this post, Paul shares the story of his programming and editing journey. Talking of which, his latest videos on wildcard find-and-replace techniques are gems: Wildcarding techniques 1; Wildcarding techniques 2; Wildcarding techniques 3.

Some people are surprised to discover that I have a bank of over 500 macros for editors and proofreaders, and I’ve recently had several encouraging comments about my ‘amazing programming skills’, but in my defence I’d like to point out that it’s not really as clever as it looks.
 
It’s just that I’ve been doing it for a very, very long time. Let me explain ...

Genesis
​It goes right back to 1982 and to the BBC Microcomputer. This spawned a word processor called Wordwise Plus, which had a Basic-like programming language for manipulating text (and numbers). 

So, with my love of the English language and a little bit of very basic (Basic) programming skill, I was able to write some useful programs that people were willing to pay money for – £10 a program, if memory serves, sold on 5¼” floppy discs!

In 1987 Acorn produced their first Archimedes computer (then the fastest desktop computer in the world) and I started publishing a subscription magazine.
 
Every month I would transfer the text of the magazine (produced on an Apple Mac Plus, with its 9” screen!) onto a floppy disc (now 3½”) that I could sell to subscribers (for £2 a month) so that they could electronically search for things in the back issues.
 
For that, I had to do a series of find and replaces (F&Rs) to convert the Mac text to Acorn format, such as changing the Mac’s snazzy fl and fi ligatures to ordinary fl and fi, and proper dashes to hyphens.
 
For this, I kept a list – on a piece of paper! – of the required F&Rs until, eventually, I thought, Surely, this is the sort of thing a computer could do!

So I asked my subscribers if anyone could write me a program. Paul Sprangers, in the Netherlands, wrote me one, so I started using scripted F&R (think of a text-only version of FRedit).
 
Around 2005, after about 18 years of editing, typesetting and proofreading monthly magazines, I was becoming quite adept at using scripted F&R.

However, I could foresee the end of my magazine, and began freelance proofreading and then editing. But that meant using Microsoft Word for the very first time in my life – Microsoft was the devil incarnate to a pure Acorn user.
 
So, for the first time in 18 years, I didn’t have the aid of scripted F&R!
 
Then I discovered that Word had a programming language – Visual Basic. I got on to my Acorn contacts again and found someone who could write me a (text-only) scripted F&R program (a macro), then called PreEdit.

How (not) to win friends ...
By this stage I’d joined the UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP).
 
I used their email discussion list to ask them newbie questions such as ‘How do I apply a style to a paragraph?’, while at the same time trying to point out to them that they could do their editing jobs much more quickly and easily if they used scripted global F&Rs.
 
Not surprisingly, not everyone was receptive!
 
To put my blunder into context, I’ve recently discovered that, at that stage, Ann Waddingham was pioneering the SfEP’s on-screen editing courses when, in her words in the current issue of SfEP’s Editing Matters, ‘people’s attitudes to on-screen editing were mostly negative. I spent much time ... persuading publishers and editors to take the plunge – both parties were deeply suspicious’.
 
And there was me trying to persuade them to embrace automatic methods of on-screen editing. Oops!
 
So it’s hardly surprising that I upset a lot of people with my evangelical zeal. Sorry, folks!
 
But in my defence, please remember that, at that stage, I had already been using scripted F&R for almost 20 years! I simply couldn’t understand why people weren't able to see its huge power.

Exodus
It was 2009, and I was enjoying a quiet Sunday lunchtime picnic with Sue, my wife. We were by a river in the Norfolk Broads and it was idyllic: the sun was shining and a beautiful swallowtail butterfly landed not six feet from where we were sitting.

I was trying to concentrate on the book I was reading but my mind kept straying to work issues. In particular, I was thinking about PreEdit, and how the list of F&Rs was held as a text file rather than as a Word file, which made it very cumbersome to use.

... But what if I made the list a Word file? Why should I not use a Word file? No reason on earth. That would make it much easier to use. 

Oh, hang on a minute! If the list was a Word file, then some F&Rs could be bold or italic. And why not consider super/subscript, small caps, styles, highlighting, font colour?

As I thought about it, the excitement mounted. Sunday or no Sunday, I had to go home there and then and do some macro programming.

A land flowing with milk and macros
With the core tool – FRedit – in place, in 2010 I set about adding tools to speed up my editing in a whole variety of ways: analysing the text for inconsistencies, checking references and citations and speeding up my text editing sentence by sentence.
 
This all supported and enhanced my growing workload of editing scientific books.
 
Unfortunately, relatively few of my colleagues shared my enthusiasm for macros, so I just beavered away, increasing my own efficiency and effectiveness, and sharing my macros, via my website, with anyone who was interested.

However, in 2015–16, Stephen Cashmore pioneered the SfEP’s new online course, ‘Editing with Word’. The syllabus included a section on using FRedit.
 
The course was a huge success, with many more people taking it than the organisers had dared to hope. It was encouraging to me because it brought me into contact with more and more people wanting to use my macros.
 
In the past year, I’ve started venturing into the (for me, as a technophobe) brave new world of Facebook, joining some of the editorial groups.
 
And there I’ve found a ready acceptance of my ‘new’ ideas. People have been surprised by the range of macros available and have made many encouraging comments.

The right place at the right time
This brings me back to the original purpose of this post – to demythologize my macros. Remember that I’ve been using scripted global F&R for nearly 30 years and writing VBA macros for almost 10 years.
 
Add to that the fact that in 2008 my business was failing: the magazine was fading away, I had large debts and I feared losing my house. I was therefore highly motivated to develop the means of generating cash, fast!
 
I grabbed anything that would speed me up with both hands.
 
And a more positive factor: I’m absolutely fascinated by the English language (David Crystal is my absolute hero!) and I really love working out how to express things more effectively.

​So macros are a tool for clearing away all the boring, nitty-gritty bits of an editor’s job, allowing me to focus on the meaning and flow of every sentence. This is the most enjoyable job of my whole career.
 
So, if my macros are of help to others then that’s great, and I’m grateful to God that I was in the right place (almost bankrupt!) at the right time.

• Download Paul's free book: Macros for Editors (and proofreaders!) 
• Access Paul's free powerhouse macro: FRedit
• Subscribe to Paul's YouTube channel and watch over 50 video tutorials

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Macro Chat is back! This is where I hand over the Parlour reins to my friend, macro king Paul Beverley. A lot has happened since March: Paul's written lots more macros (close on 600 now) and has created another couple of dozen screencasts, 45 in all (see the Resources at the bottom of the blog for more on that). So over to Paul ...

​What can macros do for you?
More and more people are taking a deep breath and loading their first macro tool. (I say ‘macro tool’ to differentiate my pre-programmed macros from those that you can record for yourself.)

But why bother? What can macros do for you?

'I’m a proofreader – is there any point?'
Most definitely! The better view you can get of the (in)consistency within your document before you start reading, the more problems you’ll be able to spot as you read through.

Did the client pass on the editor’s style sheet? Maybe, but anyway, you can easily analyse your document to find the predominant conventions and get a count of the exceptions:

• HyphenAlyse gives you a full list (and frequency) of hyphenated words as one word/two words/hyphenated.
• ProperNounAlyse alerts you to possible misspellings such as Brown/Browne, Rachael/Rachel, Henry/Herny, giving the frequency of each – especially useful for fiction.
• DocAlyse checks a whole range of different punctuation, spelling and capitalisation issues.
• SpellingErrorLister lists all the words that Word thinks are spelling errors (you might know better, e.g. technical words).
• SpellingErrorHighlighter, after you’ve removed the OK words from the list, highlights the remaining words, so you can check them.

'I’m an editor, but do I need 600 macros?'
Absolutely not! Indeed, that’s part of the problem, knowing where to start. (Sorry!) But if I suggest a possible general strategy, maybe that will help.

1. Analyse the text, just as a proofreader would, but there’ll be lots more inconsistency in the text at this earlier stage.
2. Use these analyses, plus the brief (I wish!), plus your knowledge of the principles of editing, to prepare a style sheet. (For a sample style sheet, see Appendix 5 of my book.)
3. Read the text and make the changes, in line with the style sheet. (Being realistic, some items in the sheet will need adjusting as you get into the detail of the actual text.)

Fine! Except that (3) is a massive over-simplification. Let’s dig a bit deeper, and see how a macro-aided editor might work.

FRedit – the powerhouse
The principle I use (for books, anyway) is that I make as many changes as I can globally, but I do it chapter by chapter. I do a number of global find and replaces (F&Rs) on chapter 1, but I keep a list of them, so that I can do the same ones again on chapter 2 as well, and I don’t forget any of them.

But hang on! Couldn’t you get the computer to go through that list and do all those F&Rs for you? Absolutely, and that’s what FRedit does! And it doesn’t just do the F&Rs, it allows you to add a font colour or a highlight to each and every F&R, and/or to track change (or not) each one – do you really want to track change all those two-space-to-one-space changes?

But isn’t global F&R dangerous, especially when you can do a whole string of F&Rs at the touch of a button? Definitely, so start with just a few F&Rs and build up confidence; but if you colour or track all the changes, you’ll be able to see, when you read chapter 1, any inadvised F&Rs, so you can remove them or refine them.

To give an example, if you changed every ‘etc’ into ‘etc.’ you’d get ‘ketc.hup’, ‘fetc.h’, etc.. (sic)! So use a wildcard F&R: Find: ‘<etc>([!.])’ Repl: ‘etc.\1’ (without those quotes, of course). And you don’t even need to work out those wildcard F&Rs yourself – just look in the library of F&Rs (provided free with FRedit) and gain from other people’s wildcard expertise.

As you refine your F&R list, chapter by chapter, more of the dross is sorted out before you read, so (a) you miss fewer mistakes (as there are fewer to find, as you read) and (b) you can concentrate more on the meaning and flow of each sentence and (c) the job is more interesting, involving fewer boring tasks.

Enjoy!

Resources

• Download Paul's free book: Macros for Editors (and proofreaders!) 
• Access Paul's free powerhouse macro: FRedit
• Subscribe to Paul's YouTube channel (currently over 45 video tutorials)

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Can you proofread and copyedit professionally without being mouse-dependent? And what if you don't have a degree? Does it matter? A reader asked me. Here's my take.

Andrew says:

I am considering taking introductory courses in proofreading and copyediting; firstly, please could I ask you about the software used. Usually I prefer to use the keyboard to move around the menus, because I find repeatedly using a mouse tiring on my hands and arms. Does (at least some of) the software used in your industry allow keyboard use as an alternative to mouse work?

Secondly, would my lack of a degree hold me back? I have many years' experience in IT system development and programming; would this experience be attractive to publishers? However, I was hoping to not just to work on IT-related material!

Thanks for your question, Andrew.

Let’s deal with the software issue first.

Software
Text editing
When editing raw text, most editors use Microsoft Word. There are several excellent complementary add-on programs. These increase the editor’s productivity because they allow us to do complex tasks more quickly.

One example is PerfectIt, an outstanding consistency checker that can be customized to find and fix problems including hyphenation, capitalization, spelling variance, number style, italics, super/subscript, bullet punctuation, and wildcard searches.

In addition, there are hundreds of free macros available to editors, all of which are designed to complement the editor’s eye. Examples include spell-checkers, proper-noun analysis tools, homonym and homophone identifiers,

Then there are onboard tools in Word such as wildcard search and find/replace to name but two. And let’s not forget Word’s ribbon, which provides quick access to a range of tools, including the Styles palette.

To work efficiently, you’ll need to access these tools. As long as you know (or can learn) how to access the relevant menus via your keyboard, and assign keyboard shortcuts, I see no reason why you should be dependent on a mouse.

Page-proof annotation
If you’re hired to proofread designed page proofs, you’ll likely be working on PDF in Acrobat Pro, PDF-XChange, Adobe Reader or similar.

You’ll need to be able to use the onboard comment-and-markup tools and possibly the stamps palette.

Again, providing you can learn the keyboard shortcuts, you can minimize your mouse usage. There’s a helpful list of Acrobat shortcuts on the Adobe website: 

A note of caution: my concern is the impact on your speed. One of the keys to being a successful independent editor is efficiency. If you’re already a seasoned mouse-independent Word and Acrobat user, and are introducing new keyboard shortcuts into your existing knowledge base, I suspect the transition will be comfortable and the impact on your speed minimal. If you’re not familiar with these programs, the tools within them, and the access keys, you’ll need practice to build your speed.

In general, though, given your extensive experience in systems development and programming, I can’t see these issues being obstacles for you, Andrew. You’ve probably forgotten more about how to navigate a computer screen than I’ve ever known!

Is a degree necessary?
If you want to copyedit for specialist scientific editing agencies, you’ll likely need at least a Master’s in a related discipline, even a doctorate.

If you plan to work for publishers or packagers (project-management agencies) with book lists in the social sciences, arts, humanities and technology, they’ll be more interested in your professional editorial training, and your ability to perform successfully in an editorial assessment.

If you wish to copyedit and proofread reports, books, journal articles, theses and dissertations for self-publishers, businesses, academics and students, focus on what you can do to solve their problems.

These days, I work exclusively for self-publishing fiction writers. They’re preparing their novels for a crowded market full of discerning readers with the ability to leave critical reviews on Amazon. My job is to help them overcome some of the problems they’ll encounter on that journey, and my website focuses on that rather than on my politics degree.

Did my politics degree help me when I worked exclusively for social science publishers? Perhaps. But I think my years of in-house publishing experience, marketing social science journals, helped more. When some years later I was proofreading a book for a well-known university press and Loïc Wacquant came up in the references but the diacritic in his first name had been omitted, I spotted it. It was my career experience that showed me the way, not my degree.

You, too, can use your IT background to demonstrate your knowledge and experience to clients. But it will only be part of the story. Ultimately, your message will need to be about them – their problems, their concerns, their challenges … and how you are part of the solution.

If you tell that story in a compelling way, you’ll build a brand identity that inspires trust and engagement, one that makes you stand out against your competitors, regardless what subject you didn’t read at university.

And though you don’t want to work exclusively on IT-related material, don’t shy away from using that as your springboard. It’s what you know, what makes you special. No one’s going to hire me to edit an IT book. Why would they when they can hire someone who speaks the language and knows the subject like the back of his hand – someone like you?

Specialize in what you know first. Diversify as the opportunities arise, and develop your brand identity as required. That way you’re playing to your strengths in the start-up phase.

I hope that helps you on your journey. Good luck!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Another email from a Parlour reader ... the answer will be of interest to anyone with similar manual dexterity issues and who is considering a career as an proofreader ...

Rachel asks:

‘I am looking into a career in proofreading. I have multiple sclerosis and need to work from home. I was wondering if you know whether any of the online courses cover the use of things such as Track Changes. Unfortunately, I have lost almost all manual dexterity and am unable to mark up on hard copy. I am, however, able to use a keyboard and mouse comfortably.’

Thanks so much for your question, Rachel.

So the good news is that because you can use a keyboard and mouse, and you therefore prefer to work onscreen, professional proofreading is certainly a viable option for you (assuming your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are up to scratch, and you're ready to market your business effectively).

Furthermore, there are industry-recognized training courses and resources that will support your onscreen learning.

One thing we need to look at is how different client types’ expectations of what proofreading entails present challenges for you.

It’s important to me that you’re forewarned about this so that you can target your clients appropriately, and communicate your service offering in a way that makes it clear what you will and won’t do.

I’ll tackle that issue first and then move on to the training options available.

Proofreading – expectations and possible challenges
So, you’ve told me that your MS affects your manual dexterity, but my first thought was whether it also leads to fatigue. You didn’t mention this in your email, but I think it’s worth discussing for reasons that I hope will become clear.

In my first decade of proofreading practice, almost all of my clients were mainstream publishers. Now I work exclusively with self-publishers (a few businesses but primarily writers of fiction).

What’s clear from my experience is that the expectations of what has to be done and how it has to be done often differ depending on client type.

Furthermore, how much will be done by the proofreader is often (though not always) quite different.

What and how much does a proofreader do? Traditional publishers
When working for traditional publishers, a proofreader is usually annotating designed page proofs. These are the pages (either paper or digital) that are almost identical to what readers would see if they pulled a book off the shelf.

It’s a quality-control check of a book that’s been through developmental-, line- and copy-editing. The author has reviewed the files at each stage. Once the team is happy that the book’s ready to be laid out, an interior designer or typesetter will format the book to professional, industry-recognized standards.

The proofreader’s job is to find anything missed during an extensive copy-edit, that no errors have been introduced at design stage, and that the various elements of the book are rendered consistently, correctly, and according to the design brief.

In this case, the proofreader is looking at more than just spelling, punctuation and grammar. She’s also spotting problems with page numbering, chapter headings, line spacing, paragraph indentation, running heads, image captions, table and figure numbering, widows and orphans, page depth, prelims and end matter, and more.

In my experience, because most of the problems in the text have already been attended to during previous rounds of editing, there might be only a few changes that warrant querying or marking up on each page.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but, on the whole, most of a proofreader’s time is spent carefully reading and checking rather than marking up.
That’s important for you because while your hand movement is somewhat impaired, your vision isn’t.

And because you wouldn’t have to make thousands of changes, the strain on your hands wouldn’t be excessive or challenging.

What and how much does a proofreader do? Non-publishers
Outside of the mainstream publishing industry, things become a little more tangled. The role of the proofreader is not nearly so well defined.

It’s not unusual for clients to ask for a service they call ‘proofreading’ but that a traditional publisher would call ‘copy-editing or even ‘line editing’. Here the raw text is amended (or suggested recasts to the text are made using Word’s commenting tool).

Furthermore, it’s not unusual for the so-called proofreader to be the first professional to work on the text.

And that means that the changes made might well run into the thousands. We’re not talking about a few amendments on each page, but hundreds per chapter, perhaps even per several pages.
​
Of course, it does vary, but every change, every query, requires the use of one’s hands. So you need to be aware of the potential impact of this kind of work on your health, and think carefully about how it will affect your hands and your fatigue levels.

I’m not saying that working for non-publishers isn’t an option for you. Rather, you’ll need to take your speed and fatigue levels into account and factor them into the time you assign to complete projects.

If you're working in Word, I suspect that =2K–10K-word business documents, Master’s dissertations, journal articles, short stories, brochures and newsletters won't present you with the same challenges as book-length work of 80K–100K words will.

How does a proofreader mark up? Traditional publishers
Because the proofreader is usually providing a pre-publication quality-control check on designed page proofs, most publishers like the annotations to take the form of industry-recognized proof-correction marks. In the UK, these are BS 5261C:2005.

Any decent professional training course will teach you how to use these appropriately.

Traditionally, these annotations were made on paper but publishers are increasingly providing PDF proofs.

This affords you an opportunity because you can use a keyboard and mouse to annotate the page proofs in a way that mirrors a paper markup. There are a few options, but many proofreaders use a combination of a PDF editor’s (e.g. Adobe Reader DC, Acrobat Pro, or PDF-XChange) onboard comment and markup tools and digital proofreading symbols (custom stamps).

I supply free files of stamps that proofreaders can download and install in the stamp palettes of their PDF editors. These stamps conform to BS 5261C:2005.
 
How does a proofreader mark up? Non-publishers
Because many non-publishers supply Word files, you’ll be working directly in Word and using Track Changes.

You’ll also be able to take advantage of several macro suites and find/replace strings that will improve your efficiency and reduce the strain on your wrists and fingers.

That’s good news for all of us – with or without MS or other manual-dexterity issues – in terms of time, quality and consistency.

Summary of what, how, and how much
So, all in all, it’s worth your taking the time to think about the types of clients you’ll work for, how many changes you might be required to make, how those client types will expect you to mark up, what length the projects will be, how long it will take you to complete the different project types, and how all of those things fit in with your specific health condition.

Professional training
My two recommended online proofreading training providers in the UK are the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and The Publishing Training Centre.

The SfEP has practical online courses on the technical aspects of professional proofreading, a grammar brush-up course, and editing in Word. Of the latter, the SfEP says, ‘It includes chapters on styles and templates, find & replace and wildcards, and macros. Guest chapters have been written by Paul Beverley on FRedit, Daniel Heuman on PerfectIt and Jack Lyon on The Editorium. All chapters contain downloadable study notes, exercises and model answers.’

The PTC offers a grammar course, and its flagship Basic Proofreading course.
Before you sign up, I’d recommend you have a conversation with either or both organizations in order to assure yourself that the course materials are usable in a way that suits your needs.

Additionally, there are numerous free online tutorials and screencasts on how to use Word’s Track Changes, so Google will be your friend here. Search for one that matches your own version of Word.

The most important issue for any professional proofreader is understanding first what to change, and making sure that she and the client are on the same page, figuratively speaking, about what degree of intervention is expected and how it will be rendered.

Online books and resources
Here are some resources that should help you on your journey:

• My favourite punctuation guide is R.L. Trask’s Penguin Guide to Punctuation – straight to the point, lots of easy-to-understand examples, logically organized, and short! If you can manage print, there’s a paperback on Amazon.
• If you need an online version, try this guide by the same author, and available free online via the University of Sussex: Guide to Punctuation.
• New Hart’s Rules online: If you’re a UK library member, you can access the premium version of Oxford Dictionaries, which includes NHR and a number of other excellent online grammar and style resources. I like it because it’s easier to search than the paper version, but you’ll benefit from the fact that you can access its content using a keyboard and mouse. You'll need your library card number.
• The Chicago Manual of Style: There’s a searchable online version of this too. Great for all the same reasons as NHR!
• Jack Lyon’s Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word is brilliant for helping the complete novice learn how to use wildcards to save time when editing/proofreading Word docs. It’s a small book, but, again, if the print version’s going to impede access, then use Google Search. Try, for example, Graham Mayor’s Find and Replace using Wildcards.
• Check out the myriad macros on Jack’s The Editorium, too.
• PerfectIt is a simply gorgeous Word add-in that, in my opinion, is a must-have for any professional editor or proofreader working in Word. There are lots of tutorials on the developer’s website.
• Rich Adin’s EditTools is also popular with non-fiction Word editors and proofreaders.
• ​And let’s not forget the mountain of macros available via Paul Beverley – do check these out; they’re all free!
• Finally, for a tiny but excellent summary of BS 5261C:2005 proof-correction marks, visit the SfEP website. There are freebies online but they’re not always up to date. This is still, for me, the best and cheapest reference guide to the marks. It comes as a sturdy piece of folded card, so I’m hoping it won’t be a challenge for your hands.

I hope this helps you move forward, Rachel, and wish you all the very best in your search for a career that will work for you alongside your MS rather than in opposition to it.

Good luck!

Further reading

• Not all proofreading is the same: Part 1. Working with page proofs (Louise Harnby)
• Not all proofreading is the same: Part 2. Working directly in Word (Louise Harnby)
• PDF Editing – Making the Most of the Stamps Tool​ (Louise Harnby)
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby; The Proofreader’s Parlour)
• The Proofreader’s Corner: Page Proofs and the Domino Effect (Louise Harnby; An American Editor)
• Proofreading Practice: Exercises with model answers and commentary, 2nd ed. (contact Margaret Aherne direct)

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Can you proofread your own book? Here's my advice on what can be done, and how you can do it. 

Truly, nothing beats a second pair of eyes on a piece of text, short or long. I know this all too well because I’m a professional proofreader and copyeditor, but I also write – books (yup, I've self-published four times), guides, booklets and blog posts.

​And I miss stuff – not because I have a problem with grammar, punctuation or spelling, but because I’m too close to the text. I see my own writing in terms of the ideas I want to convey rather than the text in front of my eyes.

That’s why I hire fellow proofreaders and editors to help make my written materials the best they can be. I don't expect those people to guarantee perfection but I do expect to them to ramp up the quality (and they've never failed me).

Here’s another thing I know – the better shape the file's in, the better the price. Editors and proofreaders are professionals and, though we love what we do, we have bills and mortgages too. So, very broadly speaking, the more intervention needed, the higher the fee.

There are things every writer can do to tidy up a piece of text by themselves, though. I’ve compiled them in one handy resource: The Author’s Proofreading Companion.

The steps in this toolkit won’t replace a rigorous professional developmental edit, line edit/copyedit and final prepublication proofread, but they will help rid your file of some of the nasties!

Here’s what the Companion shows you how to do:

• Remove double spaces
• Remove all rogue spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs
• Remove double line returns
• Change hyphens used as parentheses to dashes
• Change tabbed paragraph indents to proper line indents (using Word’s ‘Styles’)
• Change a hyphen in a number span
• Find lower-case letters at the beginning of paragraphs
• Find a paragraph that ends with no punctuation
• Find a full point followed by a lower-case letter
• ​Change date styles with wildcard searches
• Run a confusables macro
• Remove unnecessary spaces before or after punctuation

Just click on the image below to get your FREE copy!

Hope it helps! And come back soon for more handy tips and advice designed especially for beginner writers.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

• Simple automatic spellchecking
• Advanced automatic spelling correction
• Using MultiSwitch
• Reference citation checking
• ProperNounAlyse
• HyphenAlyse
• Advanced FRedit use
• Line editing
• Macros for Editors – Summary

I’ve included a link to 'Using MultiSwitch'. From there you can access all the other screencasts and subscribe.

You can download all of Paul's scripts via his book, Macros for Editors.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you’re an editor or proofreader who’s never once switched off Track Changes (TC) in the middle of an edit and then forgotten to toggle it back on again, congratulations – you’re a rare creature indeed!

​I’m not rare. I’ve done it several times. If you’re like me, you know that sinking feeling – that you’re going to have to go back to where you stopped tracking and redo the work. I've come close to weeping when this has happened. It’s a waste of  precious, precious time, pure and simple!

​Until recently, my solution consisted of frequently double-checking whether TC was on or off. No big deal, you might think. After all, it’s easy enough to take your eye up to the TC button on the Review tab and see whether it’s greyed out – only a tenth of a second. But those tenths add up.

Furthermore, I’m not billing my clients for my attention to the TC button; I’m billing them for proofreading and editing. I should be focusing on the text, not distracting myself with checking that TC is on.

I could work with ‘All Markup’ (or ‘Final Showing Markup’ in earlier versions of Word) showing, but that’s just another distraction. I want my eyes and brain to focus on what my client has written, not what I’ve amended.

Paul Beverley, naturally, has the solution. It’s a macro called VisibleTrackOff4 and it’s amazing!

Even if you don’t like macros, don’t use macros, are wary of macros, this is one macro that you should consider installing anyway. Trust me. It's a lifesaver.

By the end of this article, you’ll know how to ensure you never forget you’ve switched off Track Changes. I’ll show you the following:

• How it works
• How to install it
• How to run it efficiently
• Alternative versions with different formatting options

How it works 
In brief, VisibleTrackOff4 is an alternative TC on/off switch. You run this macro instead of using Word’s TC button.
​
I work in Windows 10 with Word 2016. On my screen, the TC button is accessible via the ribbon in the Review tab. Your view may be slightly different.

When you use VisibleTrackOff4 (rather than the TC button shown above) to switch on TC, your page appears white, as usual. However, when you use it to switch off TC, your page turns yellow. As you toggle TC on and off, your page colour toggles too. If the page is yellow, you know TC is off. That’s something you can’t miss, and that’s why it’s foolproof.

To use the macro efficiently, you can do one of the following:

• Create a shortcut key
• Add the macro to your Quick Access Toolbar
• Create a custom button in your ribbon (Word version 2010 onwards)

I’ll show you how to do all three in the ‘How to run it efficiently’ section below.

How to install it
Here’s how to install the macro:

• Download Paul’s book from his website, Archive Publications
• Open TheMacros.doc
• Search for VisibleTrackOff4
• Select and copy the script, including the title ‘Sub VisibleTrackOff4()’, right down to and including ‘End Sub’
• Open the ‘View’ tab on Word’s ribbon
• Click on the ‘Macros’ button

• A window will open (with the header ‘Macros’). Click on the ‘Step Into’ button
• This will open Visual Basic. In this will be another window (with the header ‘Normal – NewMacros (Code)’. Use the scroll bar on the right to go to the bottom. If you need help installing a macro for the first time, see ‘Another useful proofreading/editing macro: Paul Beverley’s MultiSwitch’
• Click under the last line of text
• Paste the macro script that you copied earlier
• Close Visual Basic using the ‘X’ in the top right-hand corner

• Click ‘OK’ if you get the message ‘This command will stop the debugger’

How to run it efficiently
To switch TC on and off efficiently using VisibleTrackOff4, you can do one of the following:

• Create a shortcut key
• Add the macro to your Quick Access Toolbar
• Create a custom button in your ribbon (Word version 2010 onwards)

Create a shortcut key

• Right-click anywhere on the ribbon
• Select ‘Customize the Ribbon’, or ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’, depending on your software
• Click on the ‘Customize…’ button at the bottom 

• Under ‘Categories’, select ‘Macros’
• Go to the right-hand ‘Macros’ column. Scroll down and select VisibleTrackOff4
• Type in your preferred shortcut key
• Click on the ‘Assign’ button followed by the ‘Close’ button

Add the macro to your Quick Access Toolbar

• Right-click anywhere on the ribbon
• Select ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’
• From the drop-down ‘Choose commands from:’ box, choose ‘Macros’
• Scroll down to find the macro and click on it
• Click on the ‘Add’ button followed by the ‘OK’ button
  

​This is what your new button will look like:

Create a custom button in your ribbon (Word version 2010 onwards) 

• Right-click anywhere on the ribbon
• Select ‘Customize the Ribbon’
• Look to the right-hand column
• Scroll down and click on ‘Review’
• Click on the subentry ‘Tracking’
• Click the ‘New Group’ button
• Now look to the left-hand column
• From the drop-down ‘Choose commands from:’ box, choose ‘Macros’
• Scroll down to find the macro and click on it to select it
• Go back to the right-hand column and click on ‘New Group (Custom)’
• Click the ‘Add’ button followed by the ‘OK’ button

This is what your new button will look like:

Other versions
You don’t have to go for the yellow-page effect. Paul’s provided other options. The installation and quick-access instructions are the same; only the script you’ll need to copy and paste is different:

• VisibleTrackOff – embossed effect
• VisibleTrackOff2 – blue dotted underline
• VisibleTrackOff3 – wiggly lines
• TrackOnOffAudible – beeps

​
Summing up
I prefer the yellow-page effect because it’s so obvious, and because it doesn’t interfere with my view of the text while I’m amending with TC off.

I also prefer to run the macro with a custom ribbon-based button because it’s right up there alongside Word’s TC button, which is what I’m used to. I’ve created a shortcut key so that I have choice in the matter. This comes in handy when I need regular access to the Styles tab and don’t want to keep switching the tabs on the ribbon.

I urge you to try this macro. Remember, you need never again endure the frustration of having forgotten to switch on Track Changes! 

P.S. My colleague Adrienne Montgomerie was single-handedly responsible for showing me how easy it is to customize the ribbon so that you can easily and quickly access any command. Her article ‘Make a Custom Tab on Word’s Ribbon’ is a must-read if you want to increase your onscreen efficiency.

And, as always, thanks to Paul Beverley for creating some brilliant macros, and for giving me permission to bang on about them via my blog!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

My Student Proofreading Toolkit includes 17 handy Word find/replace strings and wildcard searches that will help you tidy up your PhD thesis or Master’s dissertation before you hand it over to a third-party professional proofreader or submit it to your university’s assessors.

The toolkit includes:​

• 17 self-editing tasks
• advice on using Word’s ‘Styles’ function
• a brief discussion of stylistic preferences
• links to 17 popular academic style summaries (e.g. CMOS, APA and OSCOLA)
• guidance on choosing a professional proofreader

These DIY tips are designed to complement, not replace, a rigorous proofread. You can polish your document at any stage, but, for the sake of efficiency, I recommend carrying out the tasks after you've finished writing your thesis or dissertation and reviewed its purpose, content and structure.

No advanced technical knowledge is required – even the novice Word user will be able to implement these tasks by following the step-by-step instructions (and associated screenshots). You can even select and copy some of the longer find/replace and wildcard search strings from the PDF.

A word of caution – always save a backup copy of your file first, just in case you implement changes incorrectly. It's easier to revert to a fallback document than to repair a damaged one. I always test complex find/replace and wildcard search strings beforehand.

The self-editing tips I’ve chosen are some of my personal favourites. I hope you find them as useful as I do!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

MultiSwitch is another gem of a macro created by my colleague Paul Beverley.

It’s available in his free book, Computer Tools for Editors.
 
In a nutshell, it allows you to switch around a word (or words) with a single keyboard shortcut. I use it to save time with every single Word-based project I work on.

​So imagine that you’re editing or proofreading a Word file in which the author repeatedly uses ‘which’ for restrictive relative clauses. You want to change it to ‘that’. This means carrying out three small actions: select, delete and retype.

That’s not a problem if the issue occurs twice in a file, but if it occurs tens or hundreds of times, those seconds are going to add up and eat into your hourly rate. And let’s not get started on the ache in your wrist!
 
Naturally, you might notice that a particular job has a number of similar niggles that you want to attend to, in which case this macro will be even more of a productivity-enhancer.

I’m currently working on an 85K+ academic book in Word – multiple authors, some whose first language isn’t English. The publisher is a stickler for the which/that and last/past prescriptions, even though many in the UK are a little more forgiving. There are hundreds of instances, and MultiSwitch is saving me soooo much time!
 
Give it a whirl!

MultiSwitch in action
To run MultiSwitch, you simply place your cursor before or in the word you want to change (in our example here, ‘which’), and hit your keyboard shortcut (I’ve assigned Ctrl Q, but you can choose whatever you like). Then, bingo, the macro amends ‘which’ to ‘that’.

Here's a teeny-tiny video of me using MultiSwitch. This demo aims merely to show you where to place the cursor prior to hitting your assigned shortcut key command, and what you will see on your screen (a little flickering as the macro makes the switch). 

​If you don’t know how to assign a keyboard shortcut, don’t worry – I’ll show you how later in the article. 

The beauty of MultiSwitch is that you need only one keyboard shortcut for a ton of different word switches. My list currently includes the following switch options: 

• that – which
• which – that
• last – past
• like – such as
• less – fewer
• Less – Fewer

However, I’ll be adding more as and when I need to. Again, further down, I explain how to create your list – it’s a doddle.

Installing MultiSwitch
Go to Paul’s website and download Computer Tools for Editors.

Save the zipped folder to your computer and extract three files: one is an overview of the macros – what they are, what they do, how to store them and so on – plus all the programs themselves; another contains just the actual macro programs; a third is called ‘Beginners Start Here’; and the final file is a style sheet. The file you need to open in Word is ‘The Macros’.

Use Word’s navigation menu on a Mac (or Ctrl F on a PC) to open the Find function. Type ‘Sub MultiSwitch’ into the search field and hit ‘Return’ twice. That will take you to the start of the relevant script.

Select and copy the script from ‘Sub MultiSwitch()’ down to ‘End Sub’.

Still working in Word, open the ‘View’ tab and click on the ‘Macros’ icon on the ribbon:  

A new window will open.

If you don’t have any macros already loaded:

• Create a test macro that you can delete later.
  
• First, make sure the ‘Normal.dotm’ template is showing in the ‘Macros in:’ box.
  
• Type ‘TEST’ into the ‘Macro name:’ box.
  
• Click on the ‘Create’ button.
  
• Your TEST macro will now show up. From now on, it’ll be easy as pie to add additional macros.
  

If you already have macros loaded (your TEST macro or any other):

• Click on ‘Edit’.

​​
This will open up another window:

• If necessary, use the scroll bar to take you to the bottom of the text.
• Paste the MultiSwitch script at the end, under ‘End Sub’.

Don’t close this Visual Basic window quite yet – there’s something else you need to do first!

Creating your MultiSwitch list
Now head over to Word. Open a new document and call it something meaningful (mine’s called LHSwitchList). 

Create your list using the following style:

that
which

which
that

last
past

like
such as

less
fewer

Less
Fewer

Save it somewhere just as meaningful! (Mine’s in my Macros folder, but you can save it wherever it suits you.) Now close the document.

You can amend this list any time you want to – just add or delete as you see fit.

Changing the MultiSwitch script
Now you're going to make two small amendments to the macro script so that it's personalized for you, so go back to the window into which you pasted the MultiSwitch script.

At the top of the script, you’ll see the following:

Sub MultiSwitch ()
‘ Version 11.05.16
‘ Scripted word/phrase switching

maxWords = 4
listName = “LHSwitchList”
' Set min number of chars for an abbreviation
minChars = 2

myDir = “C:\Users\Louise\Dropbox\Macros\”

The text in red shows how I’ve customized the script to suit my needs – you need to put in your own switch-list file name and location.

Now you can close the window by clicking on the ‘X’ in the top right-hand corner. Do the same with the general Visual Basic window too. Don’t worry if you get a message about a debugger – just press ‘OK’.

Creating the keyboard shortcut for running MultiSwitch
If you don't know how to create keyboard shortcuts, this section's for you. If you do know how to do this, you don't need to read any further!

I'm working in Word 2016 on a PC. If you are too, the instructions are as follows:

• In Word, select ‘File’, ‘Options’, ‘Customize Ribbon’ (1). 
• Click on ‘Customize’ (2). A new box will open up entitled ‘Customize Keyboard’.
• In the ‘Categories:’ window (3), scroll down and select ‘Macros’.
• In the ‘Macros’ window (4), select ‘MultiSwitch’.
• Finally, choose your preferred keyboard combination by typing it into the ‘Press New Shortcut Key’ window (5).
• Select ‘Assign’ and ‘Close’.

(If you are working in a different version of Word, see pp. 14–15 of the ‘ComputerTools4Eds’ file in the Macros folder that you've downloaded from Paul’s site in order to install this macro. There, he provides details of the process for different versions of the software.)

The image below shows how I assigned a keyboard shortcut to another macro called ‘UndoHighlight’. The steps are exactly the same.

That's it! I hope this macro saves you as much time as it's saving me!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

PerfectIt is my go-to editorial software when I'm copyediting and proofreading in books Microsoft Word. Here's why I think you should use it ...

Needless to say, this review only scratches the surface – to understand all of the tests and checks that PerfectIt can do for you, you really need to get stuck in and play with it.

I’m not going to use this article to provide an instruction manual for how to use PerfectIt – the developer, Daniel Heuman, has provided plenty of guidance on the Intelligent Editing website and a stack of video tutorials on the Intelligent Editing YouTube channel.

What I will do is highlight the new features that I find most useful when proofreading and copyediting for those clients who want me to work directly in Word. Readers who are specialist copy-editors or who have different client groups may well have different preferences.
​
Disclaimer: I have a PerfectIt licence and am a long-time user of the software. However, the developer has not asked me to write this review, nor have I been remunerated in any way for doing so.

The views expressed herein are mine and based solely on my experience of using PerfectIt on a regular basis.

What is it?
For those readers who are not familiar with this software, PerfectIt 3 is a sophisticated consistency checker. By customizing its built-in style sheets, or creating your own, you can define your preferences and let PerfectIt locate variations and possible errors.

Note: PerfectIt is not compatible with Macs. If you’re a Mac user, you’ll need software that specializes in enabling Windows applications to be run on a Mac (e.g. VMware Fusion or Parallels).

What's so brilliant about PerfectIt 3?
There are two reasons why I fell in love all over again.

1. I got better at using Word’s find/replace wildcard search function, thanks primarily to Jack Lyon’s free Advanced Find and Replace for Microsoft Word (an updated and expanded version is available from Amazon for US$9.95: Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word) and chin-wagging with my pals from the Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ local group in Norfolk.
2. Daniel Heuman added some fabulous new or improved features to PerfectIt 3. These enabled me to take what I’d learned about harnessing the power of Word’s wildcard searches and build that into my customization of PerfectIt.

To get the best out of PerfectIt, you must tell it what you want it to do. That does mean launching one of the style sheets and taking the time to look at all the various options (and there are a lot).

In my early days of using PerfectIt, I didn’t do this. The result was that I didn’t get the most out of the software because it was ignoring inconsistencies (or flagging up false positives) that I'd marked as not relevant, when the opposite was true.

It isn’t that PerfectIt wasn’t working properly, but rather that I wasn’t.

Here are two examples:

1. In some of the files I work on (e.g. fiction texts), I want to spell out most numbers. Before I started paying serious attention to all the options available for customization in PerfectIt’s Style Sheet Editor,
   
   I would run the program and find that it missed a lot. It’s only when I studied the Settings and Fine-tuning tabs in the Style Sheet Editor that I realized why.
   
   I was still asking PerfectIt to ignore numerals under certain conditions – conditions that didn’t apply to the type of work I was doing. By customizing the instructions, I was able to enforce my own preference. All those previous misses turned into hits.
   
   
2. PerfectIt is a Word add-on. If you can’t get the best out of Word, you won’t get the best out of PerfectIt. Until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t utilizing the Wildcards function in PerfectIt’s Style Sheet Editor.
   
   Cannier users of Word will be shocked that I didn’t know how to locate inconsistencies in author/date in-text citations (e.g. (Harnby, 2013) vs (Harnby 2013) using wildcard searching. I could find the problems in Word but I couldn’t automatically fix them – all the replacing was done manually (yeah, I know!).
   
   And because I couldn’t do the automatic fix in Word, I couldn’t do the fix in PerfectIt. When I did learn how to do it in Word, I made PerfectIt work harder for me and saved myself a tonne of time.

There’s a developer summary of all the new features and improvements of PerfectIt at ‘What’s new in Version 3’. The following is a brief overview of what I love the most.

Wildcard searches
PerfectIt 3 allows you to harness the power of wildcard searches using exactly the same terms that you’d use in Word.

I love this feature because it means I can work more efficiently – I don’t have to run a set of find/replace searches in Word and then go and do a bunch of other stuff in PerfectIt. I can consolidate all my wildcard searches in one place, which saves me time.

Example: one of my clients has a house style that asks for comma separators in four-digit numbers (e.g. 2,999), but fixed spaces in five-digit (and above) numbers, e.g. 12 999 or 112 999. In Word, the wildcard search is:

FIND: ([0-9]{2,3}),([0-9]{3})
REPLACE: \1^s\2

I can add those exact same instructions into a PerfectIt style sheet, customizing it via the Wildcards section in the Style Sheet Editor. Then, every time I use that style sheet, PerfectIt will test for the pattern in red and adjust the comma to a space.

Note that you can tell PerfectIt to always use comma separators (or alternative renderings) but the wildcard search comes into its own when your house style asks for inconsistency (as in this example).

As my colleague Sarah Patey wisely pointed out, wildcard searches in Word can be problematic when Track Changes is switched on. Word doesn’t always behave itself! However, PerfectIt seems to handle wildcard searches with TC rather better.

Missing brackets and quotation marks
This is a gem for those of us who work on academic projects with lots of brackets (e.g. author/date citations or quoted matter) and those of us who proofread and edit fiction (e.g. dialogue).

To take advantage of this function, launch PerfectIt, select your preferred style sheet and click on the Tests in the sidebar to activate the dropdown menu. Then select ‘Tests and Options’, choose ‘Formatting’ and make sure that ‘Brackets and Quotes Left Open’ is checked.

Oxford/serial comma
The debate about whether the Oxford comma is useful or unnecessary rumbles on in the world of words. No matter – editors and proofreaders often find themselves instructed by their client to use it or bin it (except where enforcing the preference would lead to a lack of clarity).

PerfectIt allows you to set a preference either way – just make sure the test is checked (it’s in the ‘Formatting’ section mentioned above, and that you’ve actually set the preference.

To tell PerfectIt what to do, click on ‘Edit Current Style’ on the top ribbon, choose ‘Settings’, scroll down to ‘Oxford (Serial) Commas’ and make your choice.

Italics
If your client has insisted that a particular word is italicized (or not), you’ll love this function. PerfectIt already has a built-in list of words that can be styled, but you can add your own.

Here’s a quick example: some clients want [sic], some want [sic] and some don’t care as long as it’s consistent. In ‘Edit Current Style’ on the top ribbon, select ‘Italics’. Then choose an existing word or add your own.

You can then tell PerfectIt whether it should be italic, Roman, consistent, or italic at first use only. This is one of those functions that really does save time if you work on lengthy academic texts.

Heading format
Here, again, PerfectIt 3 enables us to harness the power of Word’s styles palette. You can set your preferences for several different heading levels, e.g. sentence case, initial caps on significant words, upper case, or all initial capitals.

As with the italics check, this is particularly useful when working on academic books and theses.

Additionally, those who regularly work with clients who have a specific house style that explicitly defines how heading levels should be formatted (e.g. journal article editors) will love this too, regardless of the length of each individual project they’re working on.

Dashes and non-breaking spaces
These searches are my final wow tools! If, like me, you regularly work on documents riddled with hyphens that should be spaced en dashes or closed-up em dashes, or you want to ensure that all those space-separated numbers and measurements are not going to end up falling over the cliff, you’ll adore this function.

Again, these are issues that can be corrected using Word’s find/replace tool, but being able to consolidate the searches within the PerfectIt platform is simply another time-saver.

The fewer programs I have to use to get high-quality consistency within the framework of my client’s brief, the more time I save and the better my hourly rate.

A few final comments
One of the big plusses of PerfectIt is its stability. Despite the fact that it’s often asked to work on very large Word documents and check a tonne of stuff, it doesn’t crash.

This was true for older versions, and PerfectIt 3 is no different. For me, this is important – I feel confident when I’m using it.

​I also think US$99 for a permanent licence that never expires and permits me to upload PerfectIt onto my laptop and desktop for no extra charge is great value for money. However, I do want that US$99 to offer me a product that’s fit for purpose. PerfectIt 3 is.

If you’re someone who’s reluctant to use software to complement your beady eye, I’d urge you to try this. I don’t say this within the framework of one of those human-vs-machine arguments. Rather, it’s about time.

Even if your eyes are so beady that you will spot every single hyphen that should be an en rule, every double space that should be a single, every missing closing quotation mark, every comma in a large number that should be a non-breaking space, every Mrs. that should be a Mrs, every heading with initial capital letters that should be in sentence case, and so on, using a program such as PerfectIt enables you to make all of those hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of changes more quickly.

That’s something that can’t be argued with – it’s a fact that PerfectIt works faster than my hand, so why would I not reduce the likelihood of eyestrain and RSI by getting it to do the donkey work?

The faster I work to bring high-quality consistency to my clients’ files, the sooner I can get down to the business of actually reading the text word by word and line by line, for sense and context.

​The more efficient I am, the better my hourly rate. Increased efficiency means I can accept more projects from more clients because I have more time.

I want my business to be profitable. I want my clients to be thrilled with the quality of my work, so much so that they retain my services. PerfectIt is one tool that enables those two ‘wants’ to sit at the same table with ease. 

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

My new free PDF resource for independent authors is out now: The Mechanics of Self-Publishing Print Books: 10 guidelines in 10 minutes.

Aimed at writers who want to do their own print formatting – using Word – this PDF toolkit helps the independent, self-publishing author to deliver a professional-looking book to market. The guidelines are based on my own experience of publishing three print books, and my previous career experience within the publishing industry​.

And, because time is precious to us all, I've designed it so that each of the 10 sections can be read in a minute!

If you'd like to download this booklet's sister PDF, visit: The Mechanics of ​Self-Publishing Ebooks: 10 guidelines in 10 minutes

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

If you're a professional proofreader or copyeditor, you probably already think Word's styles function is one of its best functions. Styles save us so much time!

​We used to be able to grab styles from one project and use them in another (by creating Style Sets) and that was a huge time-saver.

I was sorry to lose Style Sets when I upgraded to Office 365 (for PC).

I used to create styles for a particular client, save them as a Style Set, and open them in other files as and when I needed them.

​This came in handy in three situations: 

• Proofreading and copyediting for clients who sent me multiple chapter files for a single job.
• Proofreading and copyediting for clients who sent me single files for multiple jobs, sometimes weeks or months apart.
• Proofreading and copyediting for series authors.

There is a solution for those who are editing or proofreading on a PC using Word 2016. It's a little long-winded compared with the old method, but it does the job.

Either read and follow steps 1–10 below, or watch a short video in which I walk you through the process.

​1. Open up the document you want to import styles from and save it as a .dotx (template). Close this file. Consider naming your new template such that it’s easily identifiable in the future (e.g. PublisherXStyles.dotx or AuthorNameStyles.dotx). I like to keep my style templates in a distinct folder for ease of access.

2. Now open the document you want to import styles into.

​3. Make sure the Developer tab is available on your ribbon. To do this, open Word. Choose File, Options, Customize Ribbon. Ensure that Developer is checked. Click OK.

4. Click on the Developer tab.

5. Select Document Template.

6. Click on the Organizer button.

7. Select the Close File button.

8. Now the button has changed to Open File. Click on it and browse for the template you want to import styles from.

9. After you’ve selected your file, it will show up in the Styles available in: box. In the window above, you’ll see a list of all the styles available for import (use the toolbar to scroll up and down if you can’t find what you want). Now click on the style you want to import and press the Copy button.

​If you want to copy a group of styles next to each other, use Shift-click to select. If you want to copy several styles that are not next to each other, use Ctrl-click to select.

​Bingo – your new styles will show up in the left-hand window of the Organizer box.

10. Close the Organizer pane and head over to the Home tab on the ribbon. Your imported styles will now show up in the Styles pane.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

​Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

My new free PDF resource for independent authors is out now: The Mechanics of Self-Publishing Ebooks: 10 guidelines in 10 minutes.

Aimed at writers who want to do their own eformatting – in Word – this PDF toolkit helps the independent, self-publishing author to deliver a professional-looking ebook to market. The guidelines are based on my own experience of publishing three ebooks, and my previous career experience within the publishing industry​.

And, because time is precious to us all, I've designed it so that each of the 10 sections can be read in a minute!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Every writer, copy-editor and proofreader comes across words that are used correctly but spelled incorrectly (typos), but we also have to look out for words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly – this is the world of confusables.

What are confusables?
Some confusables are not only spelled differently, they sound very different too, e.g. imply/infer; militate/mitigate; reactionary/reactive. In this case, the writer might have misunderstood the meaning.

​Some confusables are homophones – words that are spelled differently but sound the same, e.g. rein/reign; stationary/stationery; prophecy/prophesy; loath/loathe. In this case, the writer understands the different meanings, but is unsure of the appropriate spelling.

Then there are errors that are simply a result of hands moving too fast over a keyboard – the meanings and correct spellings are known to the writer, but, in their haste, perhaps they’ve transposed a couple of letters or omitted a character.

​Or it may be that the automatic spellcheck has kicked into gear and the writer hasn’t noticed the problem because they’re concentrating on the bigger picture. Examples might include e.g. filed/field; adverse/averse; pubic/public.

Blind spots
Writers aren't the only ones with blind spots. Editorial pros do too. It’s our job to spot these problems and fix them. However, we’re only human and most of us have a few blind-spot words that our eyes are, on occasion, less likely to notice, even though we do know the differences in meaning and spelling.

My own blind spots are gaffe/gaff, brake/break and peek/pique/peak. I don’t know why my eye doesn’t spot these pesky confusables as readily, especially when the likes of compliment/complement or stationary/stationery scream at me from the page! However, I accept that I do have blind spots and have taken steps to ameliorate the problem with a little mechanical help – the macro.

How can macros help?
Using macros enables us to identify possible problems before we get down to the business of actually reading, line by line, for sense.

Every time we find an error, we have to think about it and decide whether to amend. By reducing the number of interruptions, we can focus our attention on the flow of the words in front of us and increase efficiency.

For this reason, I, like many of my colleagues, run my macros at the beginning of a project (though I often repeat the process at the end stage too).

What’s on offer in the world of confusables?
There are several free macros available to the copy-editor or proofreader who wants to tackle confusables with efficiency. See, for example, the excellent “A Macro for Commonly Confused Words” published by C.K. MacLeod on Tech Tools for Writers (updated July 2015).

Another option, and the one that I’m currently using, is the CompareWordList macro created by Allen Wyatt on WordTips. See “Highlight Words from a List” (updated July 2015). 

As some of you will already know, Wyatt has two WordTips sites; the one you use will be determined by which version of Word you’re running.

The linked article above will take readers to the article written for MS Word 2007, 2010 and above. If you are working with an older version of Word, you’ll need to follow Wyatt’s links to the sister site.
 
Why I’m using Wyatt’s CompareWordList
CompareWordList is currently my preferred tool simply because of how easy it is to create and update my own list of words to be checked – words that can, on occasion, be blind spots for me.

As I’ll show below, customizing the list of confusables doesn’t require me to amend the script of the macro once it’s installed. Instead, all I have to do is amend a basic list in a Word document – nice and simple!

Using CompareWordList 1: Create your list of confusables
The first thing to do is to create a list of the words you want the macro to find, and highlight, in a Word document.

• Simply open up a new Word document, give it a name (I called mine “confusables”), and save it in your preferred folder (I chose to save it in my Macros folder, but you can save yours wherever you want).
• Make a note of the location of your document (for example, mine is in c:\Users\Louise\Dropbox\Macros\confusables.docx).

For speed, and so you can see the basic format of the list, you can download a copy of a list here. If you want to rename it, do so. Then add words, or remove them, as you see fit.

Using CompareWordList 2: Get, and tweak, the code
Visit “Highlight Words from a List” and copy the code. If you’re completely new to installing macros, just paste the script in a Word document for now so that you can tweak it easily.

​Below is a screenshot of Wyatt's code. The highlighted sections show where I’ve tweaked the code to suit my own needs.

Tweaks to consider
(1)  I’ve changed Wyatt's code (as per his suggestion) so that it describes where my list of confusables is located: sCheckDoc = "c:\Users\Louise\Dropbox\Macros\confusables.docx". You’ll use the location you made a note of when you created your own list (see the section above – Using CompareWordList 1: Create your list of confusables).

(2) Wyatt's code emboldens the words found by the macro; I wanted them highlighted so I replaced the highlighted text as follows: .Replacement.Highlight = True.

(3) I changed the Match Whole Word instruction to False because I wanted the macro to find part words. This, of course, will pull up some false positives but it was the easiest solution I could find.

(4) I also changed the Match Case instruction to False.

Now that you’ve tweaked the code to suit your own needs, you’re ready to install it (the basic, step-by-step instructions below are provided for the benefit of those who are completely new to macro installation).
​
Using CompareWordList 3: Install the code
With Word open, open the “View” tab and click on the “Macros” icon on the ribbon.

This will open up a new window.

If you don’t have any macros already loaded:

• To get you going, create a test macro that you can delete later.
• First, make sure the Normal.dotm template is showing in the "Macros in:” box.
• Type TEST into the “Macro name:” box.
• Click on the “Create”. Your TEST macro will now show up. From now on, it’ll be easy as pie to add additional macros.

If you have macros loaded (your TEST macro or any other):

• Click on “Edit”.

This will open up a further window:

• If necessary, use the scroll bar to take you to the bottom of the text.
• Paste the CompareWordList script at the end, under “End Sub”
• Close the window using the X in the top right-hand corner.

The installation is now complete.

Running CompareWordList

• Open the Word file in which you want to locate potential confusbles.
• Click the “View” tab.
• Click the “Macros” icon on the ribbon.
• Select "CompareWordList" from the list.
• Click “Run”.

Removing highlights one by one
Here’s a tiny macro that I recorded to remove a highlight as I move through a Word document. Installing this means I simply have to click on a highlighted word and run the macro.

Assigning a shortcut button (see below) makes the job easy and efficient. I decided on Alt H because I don’t have that keyboard shortcut assigned to any function that I carry out regularly.
​
Sub UndoHighlight()
'
' UndoHighlight Macro
'
'
    Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
    Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
End Sub

To install: Simply copy the red script above and install it in the same way that you installed the CompareWordList macro.

To create a shortcut key: In Word, select File, Options, Customize Ribbon (1). Click on Customize (2). A new box will open up entitled “Customize keyboard”. In the Categories window (3), scroll down and select Macros. In the Macros window (4), select UndoHighlight. Finally, choose your preferred keyboard combination by typing it into the Press New Shortcut Key window (5). Select Assign and Close.

To remove ALL highlighting in one go: For this job, Paul Beverley’s your man. A huge number of macros are available in his free book, Computer Tools for Editors (available on his website at Archive Publications).

Hope you find this useful!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

"Not responding" ... do you sometimes see this message at the top of a Word window when it’s running a long macro? If so, you don’t need to panic.
 
When a macro is running, if it’s taking rather a long time (according to Microsoft), Word displays a warning message in the title bar of the window – "Not responding" – and the screen display freezes. Actually, the macro hasn’t stopped working; it’s just that the macro is using up so much processing time that the computer’s operating system decides it hasn’t got time to update the screen display – well, not until the macro finishes.
 
The user’s natural response at this point is to click on the screen – just to check if Word is still working. Definitely don’t do that! By clicking on the screen you’re trying to force Word to update the screen display, and that takes up even more processor time. This can then cause Word to crash altogether. [You did save that file before running the macro, didn’t you?!]
 
So what should you do? Be patient. Make a cup of tea. Take the dog for a walk.

Good news ...
But there’s some good news, especially for users of my macros. I’ve discovered a new (to me) command (DoEvents) that I can put in my programs; it makes the macro stop for a fraction of a second and this allows the computer to update the screen.
 
I won’t say that “Not responding" will be a thing of the past, but if you use the latest (8 November or later) versions of my macros you’ll still be able to see onscreen that something is still going on. More importantly, you will be able to see the prompts that the macro puts on the status bar down at the bottom of the window to show its progress.
 
A final tip ...
One final bit of advice still remains. For running macros that use lots of computer time, do try the macro out first with a more modest-sized document – a few thousand words – and not on your magnum opus 150,000-word book.

Get the improved versions ...
Improved versions of FRedit, HyphenAlyse, DocAlyse, ProperNounAlyse, SpellingToolkit, WordPairAlyse, etc. are available by downloading my free macro book here: 

If you proofread or copyedit fiction or non-fiction, or you're self-editing your own books, here's a macro that will highlight potential inconsistencies in proper-noun usage.

I've been meaning to review some of my favourite proofreading macros for a while now and ProperNounAlyse deserves its first place in the queue (only because it performed so brilliantly on a recent proofreading project!).

ProperNounAlyse is just one tool among many, of course. Those of us who use macros on a regular basis have a whole suite of them that we run during the process of a proofread or a copy-edit.

ProperNounAlyse was created by my colleague Paul Beverley, and it’s just one of a huge number of macros available in his free book, Computer Tools for Editors (available on his website at Archive Publications).

I've written this post for the person who doesn't use macros and is nervous about trying. I think it’s such a shame when a fear of tech leads to lost opportunities for those who want to increase productivity (which is great for the editorial pro) and improve quality (which is great for the client).

Why bother? Three reasons

1. ProperNounAlyse is easy to install, even for those with absolutely no technical savvy, and quick to run.
2. It’s great for picking up inconsistencies in proper nouns (even double words, e.g. Louise Harnby vs Louise Hornby) while allowing you to maintain complete control over the text. This is because it’s not changing anything in the document you’re working on; rather, it works through the text in a Word document and provides a summary analysis of what it finds. That leaves you free to identify what needs sorting and what needs leaving well enough alone. I find it particularly useful when I'm proofreading fiction with lots of characters whose names may inadvertently end up being spelled slightly differently. A writer can become so immersed in the story they’re building that these kinds of slippages are easily missed. And even the best professional proofreader is only human, so using a little bit of simple tech to complement the eyes and brain makes good sense.
3. While you’ll find it useful for paid work, it’s also a sharp little tool for providing insight into the state of a file you’re being asked to quote for. One of my colleagues routinely runs this in conjunction with another couple of macros in order to get an overview of the author’s consistency. I've taken a leaf out of her book and started using ProperNounAlyse in this way too.
   
   

Installing ProperNounAlyse
Go to Paul’s website and download Computer Tools for Editors.

Save the zipped folder to your computer and extract three files: One is an overview of the macros – what they are, what they do, how to store them and so on – plus all the programs themselves; another contains just the actual macro programs; and the final file is a style sheet. The file you need to open in Word is “The Macros”.

Use Word’s navigation menu (or Ctrl F on a PC) to open the Find function. Type “Sub ProperNounAlyse” into the search field and hit Return. That will take you to the start of the relevant script.

Select and copy the script from “Sub ProperNounAlyse()” down to “End Sub”. Paul’s helped us out by highlighting the name of each new macro.

Still with Word open, open the “View” tab and click on the “Macros” icon on the ribbon.

This will open up a new window.

If you don’t have any macros already loaded:

• To get you going, create a test macro that you can delete later.
• First, make sure the Normal.dotm template is showing in the "Macros in:” box.
• Type TEST into the “Macro name:” box.
• Click on “Create”. Your TEST macro will now show up. From now on, it’ll be easy as pie to add additional macros.

If you have macros loaded (your TEST macro or any other):

• Click on “Edit”.

This will open up another window:

• If necessary, use the scroll bar to take you to the bottom of the text.
• Paste the ProperNounAlyse script at the end, under “End Sub”.
• Close the window using the X in the top right-hand corner.

The installation is now complete.

Running ProperNounAlyse

• Open the Word file you want to analyse.
• Click the “View” tab.
• Click the “Macros” icon on the ribbon.
• Select "ProperNounAlyse" from the list.
• Click “Run”.

A fictive sample
Below is a simple word list of proper nouns with lots of inconsistencies – differences in accent use, apostrophe use and spelling.

I run ProperNounAlyse on the document. It analyses the text and then creates a new Word file with the following results:

I’m provided with an at-a-glance summary of potential problems that I need to check. It may be that the differences identified are not mistakes, but I know what to look for.

“I don’t need to use techie tools … my eyes are good enough”
Macros don’t get tired. Macros don’t get distracted. I don’t believe any proofreader who claims they can do as good a job with their eyes alone as they can do with their eyes and some electronic assistance. It’s a case of using these kinds of tools as well as, not instead of, the eyes and brain.

I could have relied on my eyes to find all of the above problems, and in a small file I would hope to have hit the mark 100%. But if I’d been working on 100,000 words of text, and there were twenty key characters, a plethora of grammatical glitches, two major plot holes, numerous layout problems, and a mixture of hundreds of other inconsistencies regarding hyphenation, capitalization, punctuation and regional spelling variation, there would have been a lot of problems to solve; I want to utilize every tool available to help me do that.

Yes, my eyes and brain are two of those tools. But using macros like ProperNounAlyse and others (PerfectIt, for example, just because it’s another favourite!) speeds me up, pure and simple, and massively reduces the chance of a miss.

I ran ProperNounAlyse on a recent fiction proofread for an independent author who is a phenomenally good writer – great plot, excellent pacing, engaging characters. But he was so busy crafting the 95,000 words it took to build a fantastic story that he’d introduced a lot of proper-noun inconsistencies. That’s fine – it’s not his job to deal with these; it’s mine. It took me minutes, rather than hours, to locate them and deal with them. And I know I found them – every one of them.
 
What will the client remember?
If you’re still reluctant to try out ProperNounAlyse (or any other editorial tool for that matter), consider this: What will the client remember? The three hundred mistakes that you spotted or the three howlers you missed?

​When it comes to proper nouns, especially in large volumes of character-based editorial work, it’s too easy to miss a discrepancy. And character names stand out to readers. Taking just a few minutes to run a simple-to-use macro might determine whether your client thinks your work was pretty good or outstanding.

Which of those is likely to gain you a repeat booking or a referral to another potential client?
​

I’ve recently posted links to a couple of overviews of PerfectIt, Version 3 of which was recently launched to the delight of regular users like myself.

I believe that user reviews can play an important part in helping others make the decision on whether a particular tool or piece of software is a wise investment.

However, the developer’s voice is invaluable too because no one knows the tool/software better.

With that in mind, I asked Daniel Heuman, Managing Director of Intelligent Editing and developer of PerfectIt, if he’d like to join me and the Parlour’s readers in a discussion about his proofreading software, and he graciously accepted.

The following relate to some comments I’ve made in the past, here on the blog, and more general issues about the software.

​Feel free to join in the discussion in the Comments below if you have something to add.

Daniel Heuman: Hi Louise. In the interest of generating discussion, I’ve got some questions for you about PerfectIt 3. You described one review of PerfectIt 3 as “robust”. I’m not sure I’d agree with you; below I’ve provided some questions and examples to help illustrate the issues.

But for now, I’m interested to know why you used this term, particularly since I think it may be holding you (and others) from reviewing Version 3 themselves.

Louise Harnby: You make a fair point, Daniel, though I used the word “robust” in quite a general sense to mean “uncompromising” rather than in the more academic sense that some might be used to.

You’re correct that I haven’t yet done a public detailed review of PerfectIt 3 myself (though I’m using the software on a regular basis), and if it seems like my links to other people’s reviews are a case of time-strapped piggy-backing on other people’s hard work, you’re not far wrong!

But this isn't the only reason: as a proofreader who specializes in working for publishers on hard copy and PDF, I’m rarely in a position to take advantage of PerfectIt’s full functionality – it simply isn’t apporpriate for the kind of intervention my clients require.

Having said that, I don’t think others should hold back on doing their own detailed exploration of the software, particularly given that you offer a try-before-you-buy option. [Readers, you can access the trial version here.]

DH: One review was entitled “Quality Software for the Experienced Editor”. Do you think someone needs to be an “experienced editor” to use PerfectIt?

What about editors who have completed training but are just starting out? What about non-editors with a good grasp of language?

LH: I don’t think someone needs to be an experienced editor (or proofreader or writer) to avail themselves of the benefits of PerfectIt.

I do, however, suspect that to maximize the full functionality of the software, one would need to be reasonably comfortable with using Word and its plugins.

It’s not that newbies can’t use PerfectIt – they can, and I think they should. Rather, I’ve come across many people in the international editorial community who are still nervous about using complementary tools to improve their efficiency and output quality.

I’m not just talking about PerfectIt, but a whole range of tools – from Word’s find/replace function, to both simple recorded macros and more complex scripted ones.

Having experience of using such tools gives one the confidence to experiment with their various features, and this in turn can have a really positive impact on one’s editorial business practice.

My feeling is that the review title in question was acknowledging that those editors, proofreaders and writers who do have this confidence will be able to maximize PerfecIt’s functionality, and given that the review was written by a very experienced editor, it’s understandable that the article was positioned in such a way.

DH: The reviews you’ve featured haven’t addressed in detail PerfectIt’s full functionality; rather, they’ve just looked at the new features in Version 3. Again, here I’d question the appropriateness of your using the term “robust”. Does not “robustness” require a fuller discussion?

LH: I think a robust, as in uncompromising, review could include details of only the new features. I think that a software review that addresses the challenges and benefits experienced by the user who writes the review can still be robust in its analysis.

Those of us in the blogosphere are always aware that our readers are time-limited, so when we’re sharing information about new (or revised) editorial tools, we want to focus on the most exciting elements of the product as we see them, and then help readers navigate to other resources (including the websites of the relevant developers) that will provide more detailed information.

DH: I’d like to address some of the issues that one of the reviews highlighted, just to reassure any potential new users who might have decided that PerfectIt 3 was too complex for them to use. 

• “[R]eading the help files for each test is necessary to make sure it’s doing what you think it is”.
  My response to this is: how many editors find that to be true? Have more than 5% of users ever looked at the help file? How many have looked at every description of every test?
• “PerfectIt doesn’t run in Word automatically. Before you can access the ribbon buttons, you have to click the far left ribbon button that says Launch PerfectIt.”
  To that, I’d ask: would anyone want PerfectIt running automatically all the time? Is this causing anyone else frustration?
• “Tests with Word 2003 were particularly fraught ... The ribbon got lost periodically, and my old custom style sheet wouldn’t run without giving an error message.”
  I think it’s important to point out that this is not the case for all users of Version 3. We need to remember that this review was done on a pre-release version of the software, so that bugs and glitches were still being ironed out. If anyone using the now released version is experiencing this problem, I’d like to know about it, though I’ve had no such feedback to date. (See <link> for how to access customer support.)
• The review is confused about serial commas. They appear among the list of best new features, and it states that PerfectIt will check consistency of them (which PerfectIt can’t do). Then it states there are lots of false positives and recommends increasing the maximum length of comma-separated clauses (which will increase the number of false positives). The nature of this test means that false positives are inevitable if you decide to turn it on. But are other users finding this test as confusing?
• “The customization options in PerfectIt 3 make it vastly superior to earlier versions, though they do add a deep layer of complexity for the user.”
  Are new users finding that to be the case? Since all the customization options are optional, are new users finding it easy to get started (perhaps even easier than before)?
• “You’ll need to spend time setting your preferences to make the most of this product — perhaps a lot of time.”
  I agree that spending time will help you get the most from the product. But is it right to say that you have to spend that time?

I’m tremendously grateful for the recent pre-release reviews of PerfectIt.

But I’d like to know about other people’s experiences, too, whether they are newbie users or old hands. What do they like best, what are they struggling with, what are they confused by, what works well, what benefits to their work flows have they noticed?

LH: So, readers, if you’ve recently had the chance to experiment with PerfectIt 3, and you’d like to share your experiences with others in the international editorial community, drop us a line in the Comments.

As Daniel said, you needn’t be an experienced user (or editorial freelancer for that matter). All input is welcome.

​It’s worth mentioning that there’s a LinkedIn discussion group, "PerfectIt Users", dedicated to getting the best out of PerfectIt – if you have questions about how to take advantage of the various functions but need a little friendly guidance, there are plenty of experienced users online who’ll be happy to chat with you and share their expertise!

To start the discussion, my personal favourite features (some of which are new to Version 3, and some of which have been available since PerfectIt was initially launched) are as follows:

• I like the fact that I can navigate straight to the software via the Windows ribbon, because it has its own tab
• The styles-management function is easier to access and edit
• The consistency checks regarding hyphenation/dashes, spelling and capitalization
• The double-space-removal function
• Missing closing brackets and punctuation checks
• The ability to customize style sheets for my own needs

So, how about you?

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

PerfectIt is one of my favourite pieces of editorial software – a set of mechanical "eyes" that enable me to increase my productivity, consistency and overall quality when proofreading. That means it's good news for me and for my clients.

Version 3 of this super software was recently launched. For an overview of what's new, visit the Intelligent Editing website, where all the additional features are explained by the developer.

I'd planned to review version 3 here on the Parlour, but I'm a great believer on not reinventing the wheel when someone's already done the donkey work! So when I read fellow PerfectIt user Adrienne Montgomerie's robust review of PerfectIt 3, it made more sense to push my readers in her direction. You can read the article in full here: PerfectIt 3: Quality Software for the Experienced Editor (The Editors' Weekly, the official blog of the EAC).

Montgomerie provides a useful overview of the best new features, points of confusion, points of frustration, and an overall verdict. Her final words? "PerfectIt will still save your bacon, can save you time and tends to make you look eagle-eyed. If you take the time to set up style sheets for repeat clients, you can free up your eyes for content issues and lingering style issues. I will definitely be taking the time to make the most of this add-in for my largest clients, and I’ll continue running it on all documents."

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.