‘What Is Proofeading?’
First, the typesetter turns the copy editor’s on-screen-edited computer files (or copy-edited hard copy) into formatted files, which when printed out look similar to the finished book.
Secondly, the typesetter prints these formatted files out and sends the printout (page proofs; also known as first proofs) to a proofreader for proofreading (checking).
Another set of page proofs is sent to the author, so the author can see what changes the copy editor has made either to the author’s original hard copy version (also known as the author’s manuscript) or computer files.
The author proofreads his set of proofs and marks changes on them, before returning these to the proofreader (via the publisher).
The proofreader compares the typesetter’s typeset proofs with the copy-edited manuscript of the author’s book (if the book was copy-edited on paper rather than edited on a computer).
This is to ensure the typesetter has inserted all the corrections the copy editor made on the manuscript.
How to Keep Your Costs Down
Many copy editors make these corrections in blue ink, but I prefer to copy-edit in red ink , as it’s much easier for the typesetter to notice red marks on a page of black type – which speeds up the typesetting and thus keeps the publisher’s production costs lower.
Plus, when the proofreader gets the typeset proofs from the typesetter for proofreading, it’s also much easier and thus faster for the proofreader to spot red marks on the copy-edited page than blue marks – when she compares the proofs with the copy-edited hard copy.
Faster proofreading means the proofreader completes the job in less time, which means the publisher has to pay the proofreader less for the job. Again this keeps the publisher’s production costs down.
Or if the book was edited on-screen (preferable to hard-copy-editing), the proofreader simply reads through the proofs, as there is no marked manuscript to compare them to. (Another reason why on-screen editing is far more cost effective than hard-copy-editing.)
What the Proofreader Does
The proofreader (using special proofreading symbols) corrects spelling or grammatical errors the copy editor missed. She also checks, for example, that
- all page numbers are in the correct sequence
- no pages are missing
- the table of contents matches the chapter headings
- each page is the correct depth
- running heads (the headings at the tops of the pages) are correct
- words at the ends of lines break at the correct place (e.g. ‘cre-ation’ rather than ‘crea-tion’)
- a right-hand page doesn’t end with a colon (if possible)
- there are at least five lines of text on the last page of a chapter
The proofreader marks on her set of proofs in blue ink the errors the copy editor missed, while typesetting errors are marked in red ink (before the proofreader sends these first proofs back to the typesetter, so the second, or revised, proofs can then be typeset).
This is so the typesetter knows which errors are typesetting errors (shown in red ink) and which are copy-editing errors (shown in blue ink) – the typesetter charges the publisher for the time taken to correct blue errors only.
Proofreading Stages
Before the proofreader returns her marked proofs to the typesetter, she has to wait for the author’s set of marked proofs to arrive (both the proofreader and the author receive an identical set of marked proofs).
The proofreader compares (collates) the author's set of marked proofs with the proofreader’s marked set and transfers the author’s marked corrections on to the proofreader's set of proofs.
Then the proofreader sends her marked set of collated proofs to the typesetter so the typesetter can produce a second set of proofs, which incorporate the marks from the collated proofs.
When the typesetter has produced his second proofs he then sends them back to the proofreader, so the proofreader can check them against the collated proofs – to ensure the typesetter has inserted all the corrections from the collated proofs.
When the proofreader has completed the proofreading, she returns the marked second proofs to the typesetter so he can produce the the third or final proofs.
As final proofs usually have very few (if any) errors, they are checked quickly at the publishing house – the proofreader doesn’t usually have to check them.