Overview

Pre-press preparation encompasses a wide range of editorial and typesetting processes between writing and distribution. But they can be split into two main stages: editing and proofreading.

Why both stages? Without copy editing, the risks of having difficulties with the layout or finding errors at the proofreading stage are increased. This increases the costs of transformation to page and of proofreading, and increases the probability of needing two proofreading stages. Without proofreading, there is no final check before publication – who knows what is wrong without it!

All editorial stages consider the content's purpose and the project's budget and schedule. Our aim is to find the most efficient way of doing the best job for the time and money available.

Substantive editing

Substantive editing is any task that involves substantial changes: (i) structural editing: moving material to different parts (or XML elements), such as boxes or notes, or to different chapters or headings; (ii) rewriting: more intrusively modifying the content with new material, a different style and or a different tone of voice.

You can ask our copy editors to apply any substantial changes you need or have this job done by a substantive editor before the copy editing stage.

Copy editing

Content is copy edited before transformation to page for two reasons: formatting the structure and checking the content.

To format your content, our copy editors work with the most appropriate tools – MS Word templates, XML schemas with XML editing applications – to blend with your later pre-press stages.

Our copy editors will do the usual content checks, for example, spelling, grammar and punctuation, cross-references and table/illustration call-outs and captions, and you can expect your house style to be applied.

You can also expect our copy editors to engage with your authors to seek clarification on any ambiguities or to get their okays for any "intrusive" edits.

Not everything you want may be possible for the time and money available. Our editors can suggest how best your content can be prepared within these constraints. This way, you will have the essentials done, most of the desirables and maybe some luxuries too!

Proofreading

You can expect copy editors to check their own work before return or you may reach an agreement that the schedule/budget does not allow for a thorough read. But in either case, you need a proofreader.

The proofreading stage is when your product is truly tested exactly as the readers will use it. The proofreader will check layout issues arising from the transformation to page – the placements of tables and figures, for example, and the occasional bad word break in justified text – and a read of the text after the author queries have been dealt with.

For single-source content, we recommend two readings, one after copy editing to check sense and tags and a second for each transformation (to web, to book) to check the layout.