The old way of editing and proofreading on paper was much more work than the current method of performing these tasks on screen. On-screen programs have made editing and proofing a much faster and more efficient way to produce a document and finalize it for publication.

Let’s go over the old method. One author wrote several pages of material. A word processor was hired to enter the text. A hard copy was printed on large sheets of paper with wide margins on each side for the editors to make their corrections and comments. The font used for printing used to be Courier 12 to make it easier to catch errors. The document was printed double-spaced so that editors and proofreaders had room to make corrections. A red pen was used for all editions. You had to know the standard revision marks when you made your corrections. The margin on the left side was used for proofreader’s marks and the right side for editorial comments. Most publications would go through two or three passes depending on how much work was needed to improve the quality of the document. In addition to text edits, graphics had to be incorporated into the document. That phase usually happened after the final print. Cut and paste was the standard way to place graphics in the document before going to the editor.

There was a lot going back and forth with printed documents costing a lot of money in paper, ink, salaries, and time to get the product out for sale. Well, things have changed quite a bit. Now we can do all of these things using programs that keep track of our edits. One popular program is Microsoft Word’s Track Changes.

Most authors have moved on to writing their documents in a word processing program, but generally don’t want to get involved in document cleanup. They are thinking about what they are going to write next. Authors submit their work in a draft format to be finalized for publication. Editors and reviewers can now use Track Changes to make comments and corrections. All changes are shown in red and noted in the right column using the balloon feature. The balloon feature in Track Changes allows editors and proofreaders to post feedback for the reviewer directly in the document. In fact, all the changes made to the document can be displayed with the balloon function; such as revisions, additions, deletions, and format changes. Additional editing and proofing tools that are available include spelling and grammar checkers, research tools, and a thesaurus. After editing and review are complete, reviewers can review each change and accept or reject it. They can also accept or reject all changes at once. Adding graphics has also become much easier with the ability to insert graphics into the document on screen.

An original of the document is always available. Multiple editors and proofreaders can work on a copy of the document at the same time. Each person’s input is differentiated by using different colors. There is an option to merge all changes into a single document for a final pass. Once all corrections and comments have been addressed, the document can be saved as a final version. It can be printed with and without marks.

Another great feature that is used today is the ability to perform word counts. Many publishers and reviewers charge their clients a fee based on the number of words, so this feature has come in handy.

Proofreaders in hard copy days were hired primarily to verify that all editions were incorporated into the document. They did this every time a document went through a review. With the ability to do proofreading on screen, the responsibility of proofreaders has gotten a bit confusing. Now they are basically doing light copy editing instead of proofreading.

The entire editing process has come a long way since it was done in hard copies, but it is still recommended that any final version of a document be printed in its entirety for final reading. Sometimes it’s easier to spot obvious errors by looking at a hard copy than an on-screen version.