Category: Proofreading

Advanced Acrobatics: Tips and tricks for PDF mark-up—Adrienne Montgomerie (EAC conference 2014)

Are you still proofreading on paper? More and more clients are looking to do away with the printing and couriering costs associated with paper proofs and are asking proofreaders to mark up changes in PDF. Editor, trainer, and volunteer extraordinaire Adrienne Montgomerie showed us how to do this with the tools in the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Their handout from their session is here, and they have also compiled a Storify of their session here. Both of these resources are probably more useful than this write-up, but I still wanted to share some of my main takeaways from the talk.

Acrobat (the Standard and Pro versions, which you have to pay for) does have an “edit” function, but that lets you make changes directly to the document. What we’re talking about here is mark-up: using the program’s drawing or annotation tools to mark up changes that have to be made to the native file. Because PDFs are a fixed format that look the same to everyone, they’re ideal for marking up not only proofs of print materials but also websites, presentations, YouTube videos, and anything else you can capture in a screen shot.

Montgomerie uses a stylus and a Wacom tablet, which some people may find more intuitive than a traditional mouse for marking up a proof. “I prefer PDFs to paper,” they said, “because I can blow up the proof to any size. I can move my marks and resize them. I can right-click on my marks and change their properties, including weight and colour.”

“I use in blue in my mark-up,” they continued, “because I think it’s less threatening.”

Two main ways of adding mark-up to a PDF are to use either the drawing tools, where you essentially use an e-pencil to directly emulate the proofreading mark-up you’d make on paper, or Acrobat’s own annotation tools (Comment & Markup), which track your insertions, deletions, replacements, and highlights. Drawing tools are especially handy for marking up graphic novels and screen shots, where the text may not be recognizable. Be aware that for layered text, text selection for the annotation tools isn’t perfect; sometimes Acrobat chooses the wrong layer.

You can add clarifications or instructions to the designer using the Callout tool. Before sending the proof back, you can run a spell check on all of your text boxes; designers can then copy and paste that text into the source file rather than risk introducing errors by rekeying.

Different designers have different preferences, so ask your clients what they’d prefer. Whichever method you choose, all of your changes will be logged in Acrobat’s Comments List. The Comments List is excellent for quality control (especially because some of the annotation mark-up can be hard to see):

  • A designer can check off the checkbox next to each comment once a change has been implemented.
  • You can sort the Comments List by page order, date entered, checkmark status, type, and reviewer. You can also show or hide certain types of comments.
  • If you’ve got only a handful of changes, you can print only those pages with changes, along with their comments, so that the designer doesn’t have to scan through the whole document.
  • The designer can also reply to each comment, allowing for two-way communication. Sometimes a change can’t be made, and the proofreader needs to know about it for the next round of proofing.

Through the Comment & Markup tools, you can also “Attach a File as a Comment,” which is useful for long inserts. Sometimes clients won’t notice these files, though, so Montgomerie will often send them as email attachments as well.

If you’re using the drawing tools, you can make your life easier by creating or downloading a set of stamps that have your most common proofreading marks. Each stamp comes up as one comment, so if you have a caret (^) plus a hyphen (=), say, the designer doesn’t have to wade through both marks as separate comments. (Mind you, if you manage to draw both in quick succession, Acrobat may recognize them as a single mark as well.)

Under the Select & Zoom tools is the Snapshot tool, which lets you isolate a portion of your page. You can also use it to print (File » Print » Print Selection/Selected Graphic) just those isolated sections—handy if you have a tabloid document but a letter-sized printer, for example.

I wondered if anyone had ever used Annotations for Adobe InDesign, which is a plugin that lets a designer accept or reject annotation changes that a proofreader has marked up in a PDF. Nobody in the room seemed to have used it, and I’m still curious about it. (Maybe InCopy has obviated this tool, but not everyone wants to buy or subscribe to InCopy.)

Take a walk on the wild side—nonbreaking space edition

Why nonbreaking spaces?

Line breaks like

Mr.
Lee

or

World War
II

hinder readability because readers have to scan to the next line before they receive the information that completes the concept they’re reading about. In these cases, we want to keep the words together, and the best method is to use a nonbreaking space.

I once worked with a company that output its final reports from Word, and whenever something like “$6 million” broke over a line, the in-house staff would use a soft return before the “$6” to push it to the next line. In general, using soft returns is poor practice, because if you delete anything from the line above, you end up with a short line or unsightly gaps (if the text has been fully justified). It’s also poor practice for text that may be repurposed for a reprint or in a different medium: whenever the text reflows, the soft return will yield a shortened line that buggers up the flow of the text.

Instead, a nonbreaking space between “$6” and “million” would tell Word not to break a line at that point. It would keep the entity of “$6 million” together, without disrupting the line length.

You can insert a nonbreaking space in Word by using the shortcut key Option + Space on a Mac or Ctrl + Shift + Space on a PC. The control code for nonbreaking spaces in Word’s Find and Find & Replace functions is ^s.

Isn’t it a proofreader’s job to catch bad breaks?

In a traditional print workflow, the proofreader flags these instances of bad line breaks for the designer. But changing them at the copy-editing stage would head these problems off at the pass and allow the proofreader to focus on other typos and design infelicities that a global search wouldn’t catch. These kinds of global changes are also much easier to do at copy editing—an instance of where a few seconds of effort on the copy editor’s part can save the proofreader a lot of time.

Further, for text destined for a digital format—say a website or an ebook—adding nonbreaking spaces at the copy edit will ensure that the text appears as it should, regardless of reflow.

Wildcard searches for nonbreaking spaces

To save you from having to search each case individually, here are some wildcard searches that can help you do global searches for situations that require a nonbreaking space. This list isn’t exhaustive but should cover the most common cases.

Make sure you have checked off “Use Wildcards” in Word’s Find and Replace dialog box. In some cases, you can safely use the Replace All button; in others, you should go through each occurrence and evaluate it individually.

(Some workflows expect the designer to make these global changes. In InDesign, the codes are different, and I won’t cover them here, but the situations in which you would use the nonbreaking spaces are the same, so you can still use the list below as a reference.)

Dates and times

Times

Depending on style:

Find what Replace with Notes
([0-9]) (<[ap]m>) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all
([0-9]) ([ap].m.) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all

These searches will put a nonbreaking space after a digit and before “am”/“a.m.” and “pm”/“p.m.”

Months

Depending on style:

Find what Replace with Notes
(<[ADFJMNOS][A-z]{2,8}>) ([0-9]) \1^s\2 Evaluate case by case
(<[ADFJMNOS][A-z]{2,8}>.) ([0-9]) \1^s\2 Evaluate case by case

These will put a nonbreaking space both between the month and date and between the month and year (e.g., June 15, 2014 or June 2014).

Transpose the stuff in the parentheses if your style is to state the date before the month (e.g., 25 July).

BC, AD, BCE, etc.

Depending on style:

Find what Replace with Notes
([0-9]) (<[BC]>) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all
([0-9]) (<[AD]>) OR (<[AD]>) ([0-9]) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all
([0-9]) (<BCE>) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all
([0-9]) (<CE>) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all
([0-9]) (<BP>) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all

These searches will put a nonbreaking space between the year and AD/BC; BC/BCE; or BP (before present).

Circa

Depending on style:

Find what Replace with Notes
(<c.>) ([0-9]) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all
(<ca.>) ([0-9]) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all

These searches will put a nonbreaking spaces after “c.” or “ca.” for circa.

Punctuation

If you are using the spaced en dash (rather than a closed em dash), the first space should be nonbreaking. (The pound sign # should be replaced with a tap of the space bar when typing these into the “Find what” box.)

Find what Replace with Notes
#– ^s– Safe to replace all

Same thing if you have spaced ellipses:

Find what Replace with Notes
#… ^s… Safe to replace all

(In French, there’s a nonbreaking space before colons and sometimes exclamation points and semicolons. If the text was created with the French dictionary and autocorrect on, those nonbreaking spaces were probably automatically inserted; otherwise you may have to put them in.)

Names

Initials

If your style has a space between initials, that space should be nonbreaking:

Find what Replace with Notes
([A-Z].) ([A-Z].) \1^s\2 Probably safer to evaluate case by case

(If your style has a space between initials but no periods, then, for the love of all that is merciful, ask whoever decided on this readability-hindering style to change it.)

Honorifics, etc.

Again, replace # with a tap of the space bar in the “Find what” box.

Find what Replace with Notes
<([DM][rs]{1,2}.)# \1^s Safe to replace all

This search puts a nonbreaking space after “Mrs.,” “Ms.,” “Mr.,” and “Dr.”

Find what Replace with Notes
<(St.)#([A-Z]) \1^s\2 Evaluate case by case

This search puts a nonbreaking space after “St.” Although the uppercase letter that follows probably makes it safe to replace all in most situations, evaluating case by case will let you exclude instances where “St.” is used as an abbreviation for something other that “Saint.”

And, once again, replacing # with an actual space in the “Find what” box:

Find what Replace with Notes
#(<Jr>) ^s\1 Safe to replace all

This search puts a nonbreaking space before “Jr.”

Numbers and units

The most common problem is a break between the number and “million”:

Find what Replace with Notes
([0-9]) ([bmqt]?{1,5}llion) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all

This search should replace the space between any digit and “million,” “billion,” “trillion,” “quadrillion,” and “quintillion.”

For cookbooks, these searches will cover most cases where you’d need a nonbreaking space. In all cases you can replace all.

Find what Replace with
([0-9]) (tsp) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (Tbsp) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (cup) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (lb) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (oz) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (mL) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (L) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (hour) \1^s\2
([0-9]) (minute) \1^s\2

If your style calls for a space before °C or °F, do an additional search for

([0-9]) (°[CF]) \1^s\2

In all other contexts, especially scientific ones, there are too many units for me to offer a canned wildcard search that will cover all of them, so just do global searches as you come across them (replace UNIT with your unit name).

Find what Replace with
([0-9]) (UNIT) \1^s\2

For example:

Find what Replace with
([0-9]) (kg) \1^s\2

Miscellaneous

Find what Replace with Notes
(et) (al.) \1^s\2 Safe to replace all

This search keeps et al. together

Find what Replace with Notes
(War) (I{1,2}) \1^s\2 Evaluate case by case

This search will work for both World War I and World War II.

In text that uses binominal nomenclature where the genus is abbreviated (e.g., E. coli), the genus and species should stay together for readability. With your cursor in the “Find what” box, go to the “Format” button at the bottom of the dialog box, select “Font,” then select “Italic.”

Find what Replace with Notes
([A-Z].) ([a-z]) \1^s\2 Evaluate case by case

For text that features math, you’ll want to add nonbreaking spaces before symbols for operations (e.g., +, –, ×, ÷, ±) and possibly also after.

Be on the lookout for these kinds of constructions, where the nonbreaking space should also be used:

  • Section A, Chapter 1, note 5
  • Boeing 747
  • 137 Main Street

Working with designers

Unfortunately, in a Word-to-InDesign workflow, the nonbreaking space (Command + Option + x on a Mac and Ctrl + Alt + x on a PC in InDesign) sometimes doesn’t come through properly. Occasionally it renders as a fixed-width nonbreaking space (which you don’t want, especially for justified texts, because it causes uneven spacing) or as a weird nonsense glyph. Alert the designer that you’ve used a nonbreaking space when you submit your manuscript so that he or she can replace it with a variable-width nonbreaking space if either of those glitches happens.

Text destined for digital

Again, if starting from Word, the nonbreaking space may not come through properly in the conversion process, but they’re important for readability in text that will reflow. The HTML code for nonbreaking spaces is &nbsp;. Talk to whoever is responsible for the conversion to digital to see whether it may be best to search for ^s and replace it with &nbsp; (or whatever the markup system you’re using uses for nonbreaking space) in Word before you submit it for e-production.

Others?

This list is meant to cover common cases only. If there’s an obvious one I’ve missed (or if you notice an error in any of the above), please let me know and I’ll add it.

Editors’ show and tell: time-saving tips and tricks

We kicked off the 2013–2014 EAC-BC meeting season last evening with a packed house and an editors’ show and tell of some of our favourite time-savers. Here’s a summary*:

Fact checking

  • Frances Peck showed us CanLII, the Canadian Legal Information Institute database, which is handy if you need to work with a document that has legal citations or references to acts and regulations. The searchable database covers both federal and provincial case law and has up-to-date wording of legislation. The University of Victoria Libraries vouch for the database’s reliability.
  • I mentioned the Library of Congress Authorities as a reliable place to check names.
  • Lana Okerlund told us about GeoBC for fact checking B.C. place names.
  • Naomi Pauls and Jennifer Getsinger both mentioned the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base for place names within Canada.
  • I also told the crowd about SearchOpener, which I’d mentioned in a previous post. The tool lets you perform multiple Google searches at once—a boon for checking fact-heavy texts.

Notes and bibliography

  • Stef Alexandru told us about RefWorks and Zotero, which are bibliographic management programs. The former costs $100 (USD), whereas the latter is free. In both of these programs, you can enter all of your bibliographic information, and it produces a bibliography in the style (e.g., Chicago) that you want.
  • Microsoft Word’s bibliography tool does the same thing (under “Manage Sources”)

The trick to all of these programs, though, is that you would have had to work with your client or author early enough in the writing process for them to have used them from the outset. Nobody knew of any specific tricks for streamlining the editing of notes and bibliographies, although Margaret Shaw later mentioned a guest article on Louise Harnby’s blog by the developer of EditTools, Richard Adin, in which he writes:

The books I work on often have reference lists of several hundred entries. Using the Journals macro, I can check and correct most of the entries in the list automatically. I once timed it and found that I can check about 600 references in approximately 15 minutes; it used to take me hours, especially if I had to look up obscure and rarely cited journal names. Now I look them up once, enter them in the dataset, and move on.

  • For fact checking bibliographical information, one suggestion was to use WorldCat.

Document cleanup

  • Jack Lyon’s Editorium has a FileCleaner Word add-on that helps with a lot of common search-and-replace cleanup steps. NoteStripper may also help you prepare a file for design if the designer doesn’t want embedded footnotes or endnotes.
  • Grace Yaginuma told us how to strip all hyperlinks from your file by selecting all (Ctrl + A) and then using Ctrl + Shift + F9.
  • To remove formatting from text on the clipboard, suggested apps include Plain Clip and Format Match.

Ensuring consistency

  • Nobody in the room had tried PerfectIt, but there seemed to be positive views of it on EAC’s listserv. It catches consistency errors that Word’s spelling and grammar checkers miss, including hyphenation, capitalization, and treatment of numbers. You can also attach specific dictionaries or style sheets to it.

Author correspondence and queries

  • Theresa Best keeps a series of boilerplate emails in her Drafts folder; another suggestion was to have boilerplate email text as signature files.
  • For queries that you use again and again, consider adding it as an AutoCorrect entry, a trick I use all the time and saves me countless keystrokes. Store longer pieces of boilerplate text as AutoText.

Proofreading

  • Naomi Pauls and Theresa Best talked about the utility of checklists. I concur!

Structural editing

  • A few people in the audience mentioned that a surprising number of editors don’t know about using Outline View or Navigation Pane in Microsoft Word to do outlining and structural editing.
  • One person said Scrivener is a fantastic tool for easily moving large chunks of text around and other aspects of structural editing.

Business administration

  • Janet Love Morrison uses Billings for time tracking and invoicing, and she highly recommends it. Other options recommended include iBiz and FreshBooks. (Someone also mentioned Goggle as a time tracker, but I can’t find anything about it. Can anyone help?)
  • Theresa Best has just begun using Tom’s Planner, which she described as a free and intuitive project-management program.
  • Peter Moskos mentioned that years ago, his firm had invested in FastTrack Schedule, which cost a few hundred dollars but, he said, was worth every penny, especially for creating schedules for proposals.
  • One recommended scheduling app for arranging meetings is Doodle.com.

Editors’ wish list

  • Naomi Pauls said that she’d like to see a style sheet app that lets you choose style options easily rather than having to key them in. (Being able to have your word process0r reference it while checking the document would be a plus.)
  • Someone else proposed a resource that would be a kind of cheat sheet to summarize the main differences between the major style guides, to make it easier to jump from one to another when working on different projects.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the meeting and especially those who shared their tips and tricks!

*Although I knew some names at the meeting, I didn’t catch all of the names of the contributors (or I’d forgotten who’d said what). If you see an entry here and thought, “Hey—that’s me!” please send me a note, and I’ll be happy to add your name.