10 Proofreading Tips That Will Save You Money On Your 4 Color Printing

It is your ultimate responsibility to take the time to proofread your job before it gets printed. Doing so will both save you time and money. Once your printed piece is printed it is printed. Follow these 10 tips below and they will help you get great results on your 4 color printing.

1. Minimize distractions and interruptions. It?s easy to lose your place and skip over text when you?re interrupted or distracted. Turn off your phone, close email, turn off your radio, music, and television. Shut yourself in a quiet room.

2. Do the first proofing(s) with your word processor or desktop publishing software. Then use your desktop printer to print out a copy. Using highlighters and different colored ink pens helps draw attention to your changes/corrections.

3. Using different files names in your progress i.e. (xyz) proof1, proof2, or draft1, draft2 will help in not getting different versions confused. Adobe Version Cue® will help with large multi collaborative jobs.

4. Don?t be the sole proofreader of your own writing. You?re too close to it; you can?t see mistakes others see.

5. Slow down and concentrating on your proofreading task is a must. You have to focus on each word and character -- letters, punctuation, special characters, spaces -- not on meaning. If you think about meaning, you?ll see what you expect to see, especially in your own writing. Break large portions of copy into small bits to avoid slipping into automatic reading mode.

6. Don?t try to find every mistake in one pass. Read through the material several times, looking for different problems each time, such as:

a. Misspellings and Typos

b. Easily confused words (i.e., ?to? for ?too? and ?your? for ?you?re?)

c. Ambiguity

d. Inconsistencies

e. Formatting problems (i.e. spacing between lines, paragraphs, sentences, and words)

f. Font style, size, and type

g. Upper and lower font case errors

h. Missing words, telephone numbers, e-mail, and website addresses

i. Factual errors

7. Read the text backwards. Reading backwards can help you focus on the words and not get distracted by meaning. But don?t depend on it too much; it doesn?t expose things like incorrect homonyms and confusing word order.

8. Proof any text in all caps separately and more painstakingly. Typos and misspellings are much more difficult to see in all caps.

9. If there?s an index, outline, or table of contents, check it separately. Otherwise you?ll get caught up in the text and miss errors. Having two windows, and or monitors side by side, and or having a printed copy of the index, outline, or table of contents along with proofing it on your monitor will help catch errors.

10. Lastly print out the pages for one final read-through. Proofreading on your monitor and proofreading on paper complement each other well. It?s easier to catch some errors on paper and others on screen. Also proof the most prominent text separately. Ironically, the most prominent text is often the most easily overlooked. Check headlines, sub headlines, telephone and cell phone numbers, email addresses, and website addresses.

This article was written for WePrintDirectForLess Color Business Card Printer

Article Source: http://www.leadershiparticles.net

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