The Proofreader's Parlour
A blog for editors, proofreaders and writers
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If you're proofreading final designed page proofs, there's more to look out for than the odd typo or double space. Professional proofreaders identify and find solutions to a range of layout problems too.
Who's this checklist for? This is for anyone checking final designed page proofs, For example:
I've proofread over 500 books for the mainstream publishing industry. The checklist below is based on the house guidelines provided by the publishers I've worked for. The titles I've proofread include social science textbooks, handbooks and monographs, and works of fiction and narrative non-fiction. And while the subject matter has varied, the requirements for checking final page proofs hasn't. Note my use of the term 'final designed page proofs'. This checklist is not for those doing a final quality-control check in a Word document. Rather, we're dealing with a typeset PDF or hardcopy of the book as it will appear when printed or published online. For that reason, the proofreader is tasked with ensuring that the appearance of the book is consistent and correct according to client preference. This PDF provides a summary of the required checks. Click on the image to download your free copy. 
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 join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
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Ever wondered how a professional book index is created? My colleague Vanessa Wells offers an honest and humorous glimpse into the world of a pro indexer – the challenges and the joys, and the 'sense of having created a beautiful thing'.
Let's take a peek into Vanessa's diary ... 
I attended the Canadian national indexing conference in Montreal, where we – like most conference attendees – go to strengthen connections with colleagues and expand our professional knowledge. Since the indexing community in Canada is very small, this is a valuable investment and full of good people.
As a result of the conference, I’ve received a referral and am being hired by a university professor to write an index for a 220K-word anthology he’s editing with 22 chapters and almost as many contributors. It’s a ‘straightforward’ index of ‘names and titles’ which, of course, means that it’s both a name and subject index in reality. Yikes.
Against my usual policy, I agree to meet the professor in person, as the campus is close by and it would be faster than exchanging several emails. An excellent meeting results in ironing out expectations, discussing needs and agreeing we’re on the same page! It’s due July 26.
I send him my contract to review, and we discuss rates. Rate structure, I find from speaking to other indexers, is variable. Some people will work for $2/page; others charge much more. A figure I often hear is $5/page, but that definitely depends on your market – geographically and by genre, specialization, and timeline. An independent author writing a non-fiction trade book is not going to generate the same fee as a university-paid gig. Some indexers provide other means of calculating their fees, such as a flat project fee. I tell him my academic rate, and he agrees. I submit my invoice for a non-refundable 30% deposit, payable before work begins. 
Proofs are due. They don’t arrive. They’re rescheduled by publisher for the 30th … While publishing timelines are often shifting (there’s a domino effect when a hitch arises), the end deadlines of proofreading and indexing are rarely budged.
So now I have to recalculate the number of hours and pages per day I’ll have to complete to meet the non-budging due date of July 26. Four days lost means Goodbye, weekends! for the duration. 
It’s a long weekend here for #Canada150, our sesquicentenary. I’m so wiped from the previous month of conferences and making a second website for the new arm of my business that I take (most of) the weekend off. I can’t afford to get sick during this project. Self-care and all that.
Forgot I start a weekly course on Tuesday afternoons for the summer, with an appointment this morning. Will have to start tomorrow. Now that I’ve lost another 5 days, I’ll have not only to work weekends but very long days, everyday. My bad.
21 days to go: I begin the pre-read (see above photo) to start gathering my thoughts on how I’ll approach this behemoth. And I need at least 3 days at the end to edit the written index, so really I only have 18 days available.
I note there are A LOT of errors still in the MS. I judiciously email AU to double check that it’s been edited and that no other file is forthcoming. He confirms it has been copyedited … Sigh. 
Re-install my $500USD indexing software on my new PC. Pay $39 for TextExpander, which is an online tool that lets you build a library of ‘snippets’, sort of like hot keys or macros, but it’s much simpler and faster. Using TextExpander for repeated, long index headings is making my life so much easier: it works pretty well with .ucdx files!
I’m already 50 pages behind. Indexing academic books is so much harder because you have to interpret the often-verbose language to get to the ideas (then re-edit them in your mind) and THEN start forming index relationships between the ideas on that and every other page.
Since there are almost two dozen authors in this anthology, I’m doing a lot of mental shifts. Why do I pine for indexes so much when they can be so draining?!? I’m being foiled by the very poor copyediting that was(n’t) done. I email the author-editor several times regarding his preferences for word options that I’m finding in the errata … 
Working on a Saturday is particularly annoying when you hear other people having a great day off. Such is the freelance life.
Here’s how I start an indexing day. Wish I had more than one monitor and can’t believe I used to do this on a 15-inch one!
CINDEX software file open; Google to check MS info, with related sites and academic books on the subject; book PDF marked up with terms needing indexing; and TextExpander to cut down on keyboard strokes. For the time being, I just type the entries into the index; refining connections comes later.
I emailed the author again about the serious issues around the practically non-existent copyediting of this book. It’s causing me to complete about 3pg/hr instead of 5–10pg/hr, never mind that I’m not being paid to correct such things, so again my budgeted time has to be rethought. He’d like errata forwarded to him so he can take the examples to the publisher and complain. (Understandably, he just doesn’t realize how much is involved in corrections before indexing can be done: research, confirm which instance is the error, note error, find other instances of it in MS, return to indexing the term and fixing all related cross-references). Ctl+F is my BFF. Wish I still drank alcohol. And for all you fellow CCLs, here’s what’s behind it all (because this, after all, is what’s important in life, not crying over indexes). 
I had a good phone chat with the author about the terrible editing. (Again breaking the rules; normally I never share my number – learned the hard way with an abusive client once – but there’s too much to discuss via email.)
We’re hatching a plan to shame the publisher into redoing the copyediting or letting me do it. Either way, my schedule is messed up, and he’s sympathetic. What he’s told me about their process with him this far is appalling. 
Email from author: basically, the publisher will redo the copyediting after indexing (!!!). This is a problem because it can affect pagination, thus rendering entries incorrect. I asked that my name not be included due to peer reviews in a trade journal, and I wouldn’t want residual index errors to be ascribed to me. The prof was cool with this; I am not, but that’s life in publishing.
Slogging away, only getting about 35 pages/day done. Have to step it up to get in an extra day for editing the index. I hired a subcontractor to proofread it the day before it’s due. I need an emoji for dollar bills flying away. [Note from Louise: I've obliged.]
Tenth day. Just shoot me.
I’ve put in 12 hours today. I’m starting to wonder if I’m going too deep with this index. Re-evaluating.
Good thing I hate summer weather. I worked smarter today, however, using more automations.
Panic time. I’m only at pg 385 out of 557 and I have less than 4 indexing days left before I start editing.
Trying a new – and, to me, risky – tactic: indexing on the fly, not marking up first. I’ll see how one chapter goes. I’ve got to save time! I’ve subcontracted out a small job (1–2 hrs) due to the copyedit snafu. I need every hour I can get. I figure it’ll be worth the money. 
What happened to yesterday? Feel like I’m getting sick, which would be disastrous. As an editor, I can always subcontract out a project for an emergency, but not only does indexing have a smaller pool of trained professionals, the intricacies of indexing style are so individual that really no one could easily or seamlessly take over. At least, not if the index is to retain its integrity and essence. Sigh.
Yay, I’m not sick! Done the inputting of entries! 6,388 records, which is on par for a book of this size and topic. The hard part is yet to come: finessing the cross-references and making links to interrelated concepts. While the software can help check for bad references and missing locators, there are many variables to consider. Some cross-references will have to be truncated and reworked; others will simply have to go; and yet others will require double posting due to wording.
This is the part that indexers must educate authors and publishers about – explaining that Word’s ‘indexing’ program just cannot replace a trained human brain. Word creates a concordance: that’s like taking the ingredients off a cereal box and listing them in alphabetical order. An index, analogously, takes the main words, interrelates them, looks at their nutrient values and considers how the ingredients work to give us a food product, but we can also just know what’s in there if that’s all we need. In fact, there’s our professional comparison: indexers are the food chemists of the book world – ta da! This stage is exciting and a bit terrifying. I read an article in our UK journal, The Indexer, wherein another indexer (Margie Towery, Ten Characteristics of Quality Indexes) admitted to having two moments of feeling stuck during the process: getting started and this stage. Glad I’m not the only one! 
I’m just doing some basic cleanup so that I can get to the editing described yesterday. Fixing typos deletes erroneously duplicated entries and ensures consistency: now’s the time to go back to the MS and confirm correct spellings; get rid of unnecessary, duplicated or differently phrased duplicate subheadings (the latter because you don’t see repeats in the Draft Format that you might have entered previously); add subheadings for entries that have too many unrelated locators, etc.
It’s 11 a.m. and I’m only at the Cs. As the meteorologist at the beginning of Twister says, ‘This is going to be a long day’… 
Finished cleanup from the Ms to Z; also a lot of double-checking that sufficient entries existed for major and meta topics, as well as the book’s contributors, which the author-editor requested. I’ve planned out the editing for tomorrow before a review by software on Monday.
And to prevent potential meltdowns, I save every 30 minutes or so, and back up to hard drive and Dropbox every 4 hours. That’s because once someone turned off the fuse box, and I lost a huge part of an index I had been working on. Live and learn. 
Sunday morning, so starting late at 10 a.m. I had a good night’s sleep, which is great because today’s to-do list is intimidating … Except my optical mouse isn’t working, so thank god I have a wired spare. Kind of like giving a chef a loaner knife they’re not used to.
The mouse worked after a reboot, but the reboot took about 20 mins, so essentially I’m half an hour behind again. I can’t just Control + F terms in the PDF, type the page numbers in and I’m done: half of them are in citations, references or footnotes, and the latter should usually only be included when they’re substantive (which can take some time to decide). So whittling down the number is time-consuming. Then they have to be organized by thought. Then entered, and without page-number errors. 
Butterflies. I heard a reminder on the radio yesterday talking about how, philosophically, Good Enough should be good enough, i.e. that striving for perfection is not good for us. I don’t think this is the inclination of the indexer (or editor or proofreader for that matter), no matter who says it. But I’m sure Annie Lamott would tell us to be gentler with our sorry-ass selves.
I confirmed that the proofreader is available to complete their part tomorrow. On to my penultimate review … 
Due to other commitments, I had to forget about the index today and trust it would be well proofread by my subcontractor. Not easy to do ...
Bad dreams all night about repeatedly calling said subcontractor because the file was late.
Spent several hours correcting, finessing, re-sorting (getting the locator order right – Roman numerals, ascending page numbers interspersed with those with an i for illustration (sometimes we just put illustrated page numbers in italics), so it would show thus: ix–x, 132, i234, 496), and double-checking things before putting it in a double-columned .rtf file. I’ve heard that before this editing stage, an error rate for page numbers of about 10% can occur, but with the ones my subcontractor found, I was at 0.002% errors: I hope that’s true! Corrected, I hope it’s near-perfect. Even human indexers with software can make mistakes. In a book of 220K words to be considered for indexing, perfection cannot be expected. I’ve clicked Send … 
Anti-climax: the author couldn’t access the file properly (the .rtf was showing up strangely), so he just asked for a new file format. He hadn’t got past the first 10 lines. But he did thank me for my ‘copious explanatory notes’, i.e. my return-file letter, which outlined info about the parameters of the index and changes that had to be used.
The prof is going to read the index this weekend, as he’s travelling. I could have had extra days after all! Waah!
Author got back to me with a few queries and the following: ‘Thanks for the painstaking and thorough job – it’s clear you took a lot of care, and I appreciate that … Thanks again for all of your hard work.’
Hopefully he’ll call me again in the future or refer a colleague to me. But after a few days’ reflection and relaxation, I’m not sure I’ll accept such a long and dense manuscript again – unless it truly is strictly names and titles! And I’ve realized that an index you’ve written is more like your baby than a book edit: there’s the same pride of accomplishment, but there’s more of a sense of having created a beautiful thing. And the labour and delivery stories are way better!
Vanessa Wells is a subtitle, caption and copyeditor, proofreader and indexer, who taught Latin for almost 20 years before becoming a freelance editor. She recently wrote an article summarizing the current state of indexing. When she’s not working, she’s either reading, watching films, or cat-sitting for senior cats with special medical needs. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
www.reelwords.ca www.wellsreadediting.ca
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:
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
You ask. I'll answer
I'm more than happy to tackle questions, especially from beginners. If there's something you want advice about, drop me a line and I'll post a solution to your problem here. The more focused your question, the more in-depth my answer will be! And if you want me to mask your identity, no problem.
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 author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
This question is from Alison, who’s new to proofreading and still completing her professional training with one of the UK's industry-recognized bodies.
‘I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the iPad Pro 12.9" with a stylus as a proofreading tool. I am currently using my MacBook Air.’
That’s a great question, Alison. Here’s my take on the situation: Broadly speaking, I wouldn’t recommend a tablet as a primary professional proofreading tool because I think you’ll struggle to match the functionality available on a laptop or desktop computer. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it in your home office to increase your screen real estate – perhaps for fact checking, referring to an onscreen style guide, displaying your online dictionary, or checking emails. Overall, though, I think there are too many limitations for the pro proofreader. Here are some thoughts … Proofreading and tangled terminology Your professional training will distinguish between proofreading (annotating designed pages – page proofs) and copyediting (correcting the raw text). This distinction will match the expectations of many traditional publishing houses, though not all. I’ve worked for two publishers in my career whose ‘proofreading’ required me to edit raw text. We might call it a light edit, or a proofedit, or just stop beating about the bush and use the term copyedit! What we’re talking about here is a quality-control check prior to publication. And it’s done in Word. In this case, you’ll not be scribbling hieroglyphics on your tablet with your stylus; you’ll be directly amending the file. iPads and Word files I have an iPad Air. I love it for email, search, messaging, reading, listening to music and audiobooks, social media and gaming. I also like it for writing – drafting anyway. But I wouldn’t use it as a professional proofreading tool if you paid me (unless you paid me a lot to compensate for how much slower I’m going to be!). The screen size is still too small for one thing. Now, it’s not necessary to have two mammoth screens, but I like mine! I’m happy to work on my 15” laptop when required, but that’s as low as I’ll go. The more I can fit on a screen the less I have to scroll. And that reduces the strain on my wrist. There is a lot of functionality in the app, but I just don’t think it’s anywhere near as quick or accessible as when one’s working on a laptop or desktop. Making a decent living from professional proofreading means taking advantage of complementary efficiency and productivity tools wherever possible. Basics like find/replace, wildcard searches, keyboard shortcuts, and the styles palette should speed you up, not slow you down. But the biggest downside is what you’ll lose from not being able to run a whole suite of gorgeous macros that will make your life easier and improve the quality of your proofread.
You get the point! So, for me, the iPad is not a contender for working in Word. Not for the professional, anyway, for whom quality and efficiency are key. iPads and PDFs Whom you’re working for will affect things here. If you proofread for publishers, you’ll likely be asked to work on designed-for-print page proofs. This presents a number of challenges on a tablet. Even on a larger tablet like the one you’re considering, you won’t get a clear view of a facing recto and verso. And that means you won’t be able to check quickly for unequal page depths. Then there are the comment and mark-up tools to consider. A stylus is great if you want to use industry-standard proofreading marks, though it’ll need to be a high-quality stylus with a fine nib if your marks are to conform to BSI 5621C. I’ve experimented with a stylus and it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped to annotate a PDF to professional standards. I wasted time ensuring each symbol was clear and neat, whereas if I’d been working on paper or on a laptop using digital BSI stamps, I’d have already moved on to the next annotation. Just something to bear in mind – practice will be essential if you experiment with tablet/stylus markup. Talking of stamps, you can mark up a PDF on a laptop or desktop (Mac or PC) using digital symbols. I provide a free set (see More Resources below). I want to mention the search function, too. One of the things I like best about marking up a PDF is the ability to do global searches for repeated errors. And while the search tool is quite neat on a tablet, it doesn’t have the range of functionality that you’d find on a laptop or desktop, particularly if you’re using pro versions of Acrobat or PDF-XChange. And, yes, the comment and markup tools, and the bookmarking are there in the app, and again quite neat if you’re working on a basic file with very little text for a non-publisher client. But for an 80,000-word book in which you might have to make hundreds of changes, I think you’ll struggle. Overall, the issue is one of speed. There’s a lot you can do on an iPad but I don’t think tablets in general are designed to let you move efficiently around a designed book page in the way a professional proofreader needs to. I want to be able to see a double-page spread at a glance. Yes, I’ll need to inspect the text word by word, line by line, but I also want to be able to view the page as a whole, including its running heads, its margin and line spacing, the position of all of the various elements and whether they’re aesthetically pleasing. I want to be able to bounce around on one page, and back and forth between pages via bookmarks, without keyboards and windows popping up all over the place while I’m working! That just slows me down, and in an age when many mainstream publishers are feeling the pinch and increasing their freelance editing rates only marginally each year, smart proofreading is essential. The more efficient you are, the better the hourly rate you’ll earn. I recommend you stick with your MacBook Air. My friend and colleague John Espirian concurs: 'My iPad is a wonderful writing platform but I wouldn't use it for editing or proofreading in any professional capacity. A MacBook is going to win hands down on that score. I write all of my blog drafts in Byword on my iPad. I use Apple's Smart Keyboard (see More Resources for a review). And unless you're location-independent and need to carry as little as possible, treat yourself to a second screen. I wish you good luck with your training, Alison! More resources
You ask. I'll answer
I'm more than happy to tackle questions, especially from beginners. If there's something you want advice about, drop me a line and I'll post a solution to your problem here. The more focused your question, the more in-depth my answer will be! And if you want me to mask your identity, no problem.
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 author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
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:
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.
 Woo hoo! Paul Beverley is now creating screencasts in which he demonstrates how to get the best from some of his wonderful macros. At the time of writing, the following are available via YouTube:
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 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:
How to install it Here’s how to install the macro:
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)
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:
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:
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:
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:
If you already have macros loaded (your TEST macro or any other):
This will open up another window: 
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:
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 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.
In 2016, I fell in love with PerfectIt all over again, so it’s high time I wrote my own review of the product.
Needless to say, this 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.
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:
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 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 colleague Helen Mortimer has kindly supplied instructions for uploading my PDF proofreading stamps into PDF-XChange Editor 6.0 (the latest version of the software).
Don't forget that instructions for the following are also available:
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader's Parlour. She is also 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 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 join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources. 
One of the functions I was sorry to lose when I upgraded to Office 365 (for PC) was the ability to create Style Sets in Word.
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 two situations:
Either read and follow steps 1–10 below, or watch a short video in which I walk you through the process – it's perfectly simple, I promise! 
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 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.
(Disclaimer: I'm the CEO of Futureproofs so this article is doubtless biased – although it's also entirely honest!) Regular readers may recall that, a few months ago, Louise wrote an excellent review of Futureproofs. 
(For everyone else – Futureproofs is a web-based platform for on-screen proofreading that is designed specifically for publishing workflows. With simple markup based on the BSI or Chicago standards, collaboration to resolve queries and real-time data for project management, Futureproofs aims to provide the tools that editors, proofreaders and authors actually need.)
In her review, Louise praised many aspects of how Futureproofs works (my particular favourite was her description of our markup tools as ‘frankly gorgeous’!) but also had some absolutely legitimate criticisms. There were (and are) plenty of places where we could improve. We've been heads-down improving things in the past few months, so Louise asked me to take a look back and talk about how we've got on since her original review. Search This was the major area where Louise thought we needed to improve, and we've done so. From March this year, we've had a completely revamped search tool. The way this works now will be familiar to everyone who uses MS Word or Adobe Reader – every term is highlighted on the page, and you can quickly step from one to the next. This might not seem like a big deal, but doing this for a web interface was a real challenge! 
Of course, we've kept the advanced search panel, too, which shows you the full context for every result in the proof. This makes it much easier to identify one particular result among many uses of a word in the book. In addition, we still provide both exact search matches and smart matches to help you find your results as quickly as possible.
Overall, search is vastly better than it was a few months ago and I'm very grateful to Louise (and many other users) who helped us with feedback and advice to get there.
Navigation One of Louise's first suggestions for improving Futureproofs was bookmarking, and we've obliged. You can now bookmark any page in the proof within Futureproofs and name it – ideal for cross-referencing with the table of contents or the answer section of a textbook. These bookmarks are also shared across the team – so, if one person creates the bookmarks, everyone benefits. In addition to bookmarks, we've introduced a thumbnail-navigation mode to Futureproofs, so you can navigate visually through your book to find a particular page. Especially for books with lots of artworks, this can be a great time-saver. Also, we've added a 'Jump back' button that returns you to the previous page you were working on. So, if you need to visit the table of contents to check a chapter title, you're just one click away from your previous page and quickly continuing with your proofread. It's a small thing but often useful! Other things As well as the things that Louise picked out, we've continued to improve in other areas. We now have a comprehensive Maths markup tool, for example, and it's easier than ever to collate a master proof and then to compare this with updated proofs to ensure that all corrections are made. And we've just released a new way for designers to work within Futureproofs, too – to review corrections on the master proof, to check them off as they're done, and to raise queries about anything that's not clear. We're really excited about this because it supports a full 360º workflow, helping everyone involved to work within Futureproofs. The bottom line is that we're hugely grateful for all the feedback we get from our users – especially when they point out where we're getting things wrong. We're always looking to improve Futureproofs, and there are several big things coming later this year that could make a real difference. (Let's just say that the poor quality of many ebooks really annoys me!) 
John Pettigrew is the CEO & Founder of We Are Futureproofs – a company dedicated to making editors' lives better by creating software that is designed for the jobs they actually do. Before this, he headed up the editorial team for International Education at Cambridge University Press, survived as a freelance editor for six years, and has created both leading print books and acclaimed iPad apps.
Connect with John on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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 join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
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.
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. 
Screenshot of Allen Wyatt's CompareWordList macro code
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:
If you have macros loaded (your TEST macro or any other):
This will open up a further window:
Running CompareWordList
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 join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
There was a time when if a publisher commissioned me for a proofreading project I could expect a large, heavy parcel of paper to turn up in the mailbox.
The parcel would contain at least the final page proofs (see Not all proofreading is the same: Part I – Working with page proofs).
If I was required to proofread against copy, the parcel would also include the galley proofs (a printed copy of the pages of raw text supplied by the author on which the copy-editor had marked initial corrections). Paper proofreading is an expensive business before the publisher has even paid the editorial freelancer’s invoice. And it’s a double whammy – the client has to pay for the proofs (and possibly the galleys) to be delivered to the proofreader, and it has to bear the costs of the return postage. I’ve worked on large academic books in the past that incurred postage and packaging costs of over £70 per proofreading project. And let’s not talk about the cost of paper and ink. It’s not surprising, then, that some publishers and project-management agencies have embraced cost-effective solutions. PDF markup has proved to be an effective alternative. Digital delivery costs nothing as long as the client and proofreader already have internet access. It’s not just good news for the client – the proofreader benefits, too. I live in rural Norfolk and have to drive to my nearest post office. That’s time that I can’t bill for, not to mention the wear and tear on my car (though HM Revenue & Customs does have a mileage allowance). Even so, I have better things to do. Visits to the post office aside, many proofreaders have found PDF proofreading to be a more efficient task than paper-based work. For those of us working for publishers on a fixed-fee basis per project, this means a better hourly rate. Given that some publishers haven’t increased their freelance rates for many years (or have done so but only minimally), such efficiencies can mean the difference for the proofreader between continuing the working relationship and waving goodbye to the client. The proofreader’s options for PDF markup Most PDF editing software includes onboard commenting and markup tools for annotation purposes so that the proofreader can:
Stamps (digital proofreading marks) are another option. See The Proofreader’s Corner: Using the Stamping Tool for PDF Proofreading Mark-up, An American Editor, September 2015, for an overview of the subject. The Working Onscreen archive on the Proofreader’s Parlour has other related content that may be of interest to new entrants to the field. Platforms include (but are not limited to): Futureproofs (client pays for use of platform), PDF-XChange (considerably cheaper and trusted alternative to Acrobat Pro with excellent functionality), Acrobat Professional (well-known and trusted but expensive) and Adobe Reader (free, and increasingly user-friendly. Latest version is DC). Potential pitfalls to avoid Onscreen proofreading can save the proofreader and the client time and money, but there are a number of pre-project steps that should be taken to ensure that the final outcome is a happy experience for all parties. Making assumptions based on your own preferences, or your colleagues’ experiences, could lead to readability and compatibility problems. Ask your client what they want Ask your client what their preferences are rather than making assumptions. Be prepared to be flexible. Some publishers have streamlined their production processes and have a strict set of guidelines concerning which annotation tools should be used for digital proofreading. Some clients will be happy for you to use digital stamps based on publishing-industry-recognized markup symbols. Others might insist on sticking to a particular PDF editor’s onboard comment-and-markup tools. Yet others may expect a mixture of both. Some may even want you to actually edit, rather than just annotate, the PDF (though this is very risky as it could interfere drastically with the layout of professionally typeset page proofs). Some publishers are experimenting with Futureproofs (which has its own onboard markup system – for a review, see my recent article Digital proofreading using Futureproofs, Proofreader’s Parlour, November 2015). I merrily used the onboard commenting tool for a Spanish business client for two years, assuming wrongly that she wouldn't have a clue what the British Standards Institution proof-correction symbols were. She then surprised me by asking whether I knew how to use the “more efficient standard proofreading markup language”. I was happy to oblige, using stamps, because it was quicker for me, but I’d wasted precious time for two years because I’d made a flawed assumption. Test the platform Once you've agreed with your client on how you will mark up the PDF, do a small test to check that both of you are seeing the same annotations and that the markup “sticks” during the delivery process. For example, I wanted to use the stamping tool in PDF-XChange on a recent project with a new client. We agreed in principle that this was acceptable.
File size Some marked-up PDFs can be huge. A client once sent me a PDF of 2,329 KB. By the time I'd stamped it, it was 25,395 KB (I zipped it down to 23,646 KB). If your email provider won’t handle large files, you will need to agree an alternative delivery system with your client. Examples could include setting up a shared file in Dropbox, uploading directly to the client’s ftp site or using the likes of FileZilla, or transferring via an internet-based service such as WeTransfer. Again, don’t assume that what suits you will suit your client. One of my project managers was happy in principle to use Dropbox (which I have) but then found out via her IT department that she wasn’t allowed to download the software to her PC. We had to work out an alternative. Up-to-date software Keep your software up to date. Perhaps Acrobat Standard (version 9) or PDF-XChange Viewer worked for you and your clients three years ago. However, the clients you’ve inherited recently are working with different software or more updated versions of existing tools. Installing regular updates and upgrading to the latest versions can help to reduce the risk of compatibility and readability issues at either your end or your client’s. Resource guide
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. I'm an editor who loves to try new tools and interfaces – indeed, anything I can get my hands on – to increase productivity and reduce inefficiency while maintaining or improving quality. So I was delighted when one of my regular publisher clients commissioned me to proofread a 320-page business book using Futureproofs and, upon completion of the project, report on my experience. Futureproofs is an online markup interface for proofreaders, authors and publishers (launched in 2014). The client uploads a PDF file to the Futureproofs site and the proofreader (or author) can then access the file via their web browser and begin the proofreading process, using Futureproofs’ very own onboard markup tools. Futureproofs also lets you deal with queries, collate master proofs and proofread two versions against one another, to try to provide the full set of tools that editors and proofreaders need. I duly carried out the proofreading work and submitted the report, a copy of which was sent to Futureproofs CEO John Pettigrew. He kindly provided some really useful follow-up comments in relation to my observations. John and I then discussed how we might present my findings and his responses on The Proofreader’s Parlour so that other proofreaders who haven’t yet used Futureproofs might have a better idea of what to expect if one of their clients asks them to undertake proofreading work via the platform. The outcome of that discussion is this article. John’s feedback on my initial report is included throughout. I'm extremely grateful for his permission to use his comments because from them you can learn about tweaks to the platform that are already in the pipeline or that are under consideration by the FP team. My previous onscreen proofreading experience My experience of onscreen proofreading is extensive – to date, over 200 books for a range of academic and professional presses. While I usually edit directly in Word when proofreading for self-publishers and businesses, onscreen proofreading for publishers is of the traditional kind – that is, I'm working on the PDFs of designed page proofs (see “Not all proofreading is the same: Part I – Working with page proofs”, Proofreader’s Parlour, 2014). When the use of BSI* markup symbols is required, I use digital BSI stamps (see “PDF Editing – Making the Most of the Stamps Tool”, Proofreader’s Parlour, 2012) in conjunction with the PDF editor’s onboard commenting and markup tools. When BSI markup is not required or understood by the client, I use just the onboard commenting and markup tools. The programs I’ve used for onscreen proofreading are Acrobat Reader (various versions including DC); Acrobat Pro (version 9); and PDF XChange (my preferred tool because it is an excellent and considerably cheaper alternative to Acrobat). General objectives when proofreading onscreen Marking up a PDF for me is all about introducing efficiencies and raising productivity without compromising on quality. I've found proofreading on paper for publishers to be increasingly less profitable (in some cases to the extent that I've had to say goodbye to long-standing clients whom I’d really enjoyed working with). The hourly rates offered by many academic and trade presses have not risen for some years so I need to be able to use tools that enable me to do the job just as well but faster. The option of using digital interfaces that allow me to introduce efficiencies is therefore crucial. Proofreading for publishers is about more than checking spelling, punctuation and grammar. Because I'm working on typeset page proofs, it’s about attending to layout issues, too, and imposing consistency (including with regard to house style). It’s therefore imperative that I can view the pages, bookmark them, navigate through them, and search them quickly. I do recognize that many of us work in similar ways, and just as many work in different ways. The manner in which I go about working efficiently may differ from that chosen by my colleagues. This review of Futureproofs is thus based on my experiences; other proofreaders may have a different story to share. What worked well in Futureproofs (FP) In-text markup FP’s standout feature is undoubtedly its markup functionality. The onboard tools are quick to learn and intuitive to use – I’d cracked the markup in minutes.
John Pettigrew pointed out that the FP markup tool supports formatted text, which Adobe Reader doesn't. Flexibility The markup is moveable (also true when using stamps in PDF). This meant that I could be more precise when I wanted to ensure that, for example, the insert carat was close up to a word that I was adding a letter or punctuation mark to, and was in the middle of the space when I was adding a separate word. Automatic saving This is a lovely touch, even for an onscreen editor who’s a rampant saver (like this proofreader!). It provided me with a sense of security. Onscreen editorial professionals are usually caught out because of something like a screen crash or a whole-system shutdown. Such events are rare occurrences but if one hasn’t saved PDF proofreading work for even a few minutes it can be extremely time-consuming to locate which marks have remained intact and which have to be rekeyed. FP has removed the problem by automatically saving the marked-up file. Querying The query function was comfortable to use, though I’d have liked to be able to remove deleted in-text queries from the dashboard so as to prevent confusion. Getting help The dashboard also includes a messaging function. I didn't use this but if I'd needed technical assistance I could have alerted the FP team quickly and easily. Lesser frustrations when working in FP Text selection Though I could mark up text, I couldn’t copy or paste it. This was frustrating. If, for example, I wanted to check an author’s name, book title, or url online, I had to type the text into my web browser. More broadly, I had to use a separate PDF to strip the text into a Word document (from which I could do spelling and consistency checks, or run macros like ReferenceChecker and PerfectIt). Says John, "It's fundamental to the way we've built Futureproofs that the page acts like a piece of paper on which you draw, which unfortunately means that the ability to copy and paste text out of the book is hard to add. That said, it's something we're well aware of and we have plans for the future. We’re also keen to add new features like automatically building a word list for consistency checks." Formatting checks There are a couple of issues worth mentioning:
Good news, however. John reports that "the double-page-spread view is coming soon". Furthermore, "Bookmarking is a great idea and I'll add it to our roadmap. We follow an agile development process, which basically means that we prioritise features that lots of users ask for." Page-load times Loading FP pages is marginally slower than when working directly on a PDF. Those tiny margins do all contribute to the issue of efficiency, though this wasn't a deal-breaker for me. Time tracking I found this tool alarming and rather invasive. FP had me logged as having spent 14.2 hours on my proofs. The work actually took me 24.5 hours. It concerns me that publisher clients might use this information to make assumptions about how long a proofreader takes to work on a project and, consequently, reduce fees. In reality, proofreaders do a lot of work that doesn't involve actually physically clicking on and amending page proofs. I was reassured by John’s response to this: “Our time tracking is deliberately very conservative, and I always point out to publishers that it will not match the billable hours for a proofreader. It counts only time spent actively marking up a proof within Futureproofs, so all those external tasks on the PDF file aren't counted, and nor are research, reference, fact-checking and all the other tasks that a good proofreader will undertake.” Major challenges when working in FP Stability The stability of my internet connection was a major problem on some occasions. My connection dropped 26 times during the proofread. The dropouts lasted for between 10 seconds and 1 minute. During that time, I was unable to make any corrections. This contrasts with marking up a standalone PDF, which isn’t at the mercy of my broadband provider. This impacted on my productivity and was extremely frustrating. It’s not FP’s fault, and there’s nothing to be done about it at John’s end, but you should be ready to manage this issue if broadband dropouts are a known issue in your area. John acknowledged that some users will want to be able to work offline, on a train journey for example. “We definitely plan to support this – again, it will depend on how keenly our users feel the need for it.” Searching For me, the search function in FP is the biggest disappointment. The efficiency gains and elegance of FP’s markup functionality are countered by the frustrations I met when trying to locate problems in the text via the search tool. At the nub of the issue is the fact that clicking on an entry in the search-results window doesn’t take the proofreader to the exact spot in the text. The contextual text provided as a guide is unusable in books with large word counts and dense academic or business-related material. I was totally reliant on my PDF to identify searched-for problems, and their exact position in the file. I then had to go back to FP and use its onboard search tool, locate the matching page, find the problem, and mark it up. What could have taken a few seconds turned into a couple of minutes for every searched-for change I made. Following are a few examples of the impact of this on a proofreader’s efficiency. I’ve provided this detail because I want to show how critical the search function is for proofreaders carrying out multiple tasks and using digital tools to provide quality and efficiency:
John’s response to the word-list issue was pleasing: “Word lists are similarly a great idea (one lots of proofreaders use) and something that we could generate automatically for you, if that was useful.” Page rotation I couldn’t rotate landscaped material and so had to proofread such pages using the PDF and then return to the FP file in order to mark up (twisting my head and neck somewhat in the process!). Given that many of the books I work on for academic and professional houses include landscaped figures, tables and appendices, a separate PDF was absolutely essential. John responded positively, stating that page rotation is another feature that his team could add fairly easily. Again, if you’re a proofreader who wants to see this function in FP, let John know so that he can prioritize it. Summary
UPDATE APRIL 2016: Since I wrote this review, several exciting new features and improvements have been integrated into the Futureproofs platform. See 'Taking another look at Futureproofs (by John Pettigrew)'. 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. "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: Paul Beverley has over 25 years’ experience as a technical author, publisher, proofreader and editor, and has the highest available editing qualification: LCGI (editing skills). Paul is passionate about macros and has used his programming ability to complement his writing and editing skills. Through his series of Macro Chat posts, he aims to share his knowledge and open up a dialogue about the benefits of macros to anyone working with words. Comments and questions are always welcome so please do join the discussion. No question is too basic! Visit his business website at Archive Publications, and access his free book at Macros for Writers and Editors. In my latest article for Rich Adin's An American Editor blog, I show you how to create your own digital proofreading stamps for PDF proofreading and editing. The article includes the following:
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.
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!).
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
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:
If you have macros loaded (your TEST macro or any other):
This will open up another window:
Running ProperNounAlyse
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. And which of those is likely to gain you a repeat booking or a referral to another potential client?
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.
In my latest article for Rich Adin's An American Editor blog, I provide an overview of PDF proofreading mark-up using the stamping tool. I address the following:
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 plan to download my proofreading stamps for onscreen editing within PDF-XChange, using Windows 10, my colleague Nicholas Fisher has kindly taken the time to confirm that the installation procedure for Windows 10 is exactly as per Windows 8, 7 and Vista. However, he did need to locate the AppData folder because it wasn’t visible. If you find your AppData folder is hidden, there are numerous online articles that will show you how to solve the problem. Here are a few examples:
Installation Instructions for Proofreading Stamps. Scroll down to the text below the image of the video link and read the section entitled Can't find the AppData folder?. 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.
With the growing number of computer tools available for proofreaders and editors, we can all work faster and therefore improve our earning capacity – and we can do a better job for our clients by producing more consistent texts.
But where and how can we learn the new techniques that are needed to make best use of the available tools? In my day-to-day work, I use dozens of macros, so for what it’s worth, maybe I can share my experience. The thing I feel is that I’m not just using a larger number of macros, but have developed different types of macros – as a result, some of my ways of working have changed a fair bit. Recently, I’ve been trying to “watch” myself working and analyse what I’m doing that might be different from someone who only uses very basic macros. Here are a few random thoughts.
Which tools do you use to improve consistency and introduce efficiencies? 
About Paul Beverley
Paul has over 25 years’ experience as a technical author, publisher, proofreader and editor, and has the highest available editing qualification: LCGI (editing skills). Paul is passionate about macros and has used his programming ability to complement his writing and editing skills. Through his series of Macro Chat posts, he aims to share his knowledge and open up a dialogue about the benefits of macros to anyone working with words. Comments and questions are always welcome so please do join the discussion. No question is too basic! Visit his business website at Archive Publications, and access his free book at Macros for Writers and Editors. 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.
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:
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. |
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