Do you have any job skills that are now obsolete?

[Emrys]

330. I was trained to copy-edit and proofread on hard copy

Each entailed knowing sets of similar but different standard marks that the typesetter and proofreader or copy-editor could interpret (the hope was correctly) when the text was first typeset, then when it was checked after initial typesetting.

We didn't usually work on galley proofs (where the text has been typeset but hasn't yet been divided into pages) as by the time I started publishers had found that stage too time-consuming and expensive, so the hope was that there wouldn't be major errors, deletions or additions at proof stage that would radically alter the pagination.

The publisher that trained me had us proofread every book we'd copy-edited, and imposed a strict limit on the number of changes that could be made at proof stage because in those pre-computerization days they could be expensive. Typesetter's errors were OK as long as you picked up on them to be corrected while proofreading as the publisher didn't pay for them, but copy-editor's errors were charged to the publisher, and there was a restricted budget for those. That was a sobering and sometimes brutal apprenticeship, as copy-editors starting out inevitably make more errors than they do once more experienced, so if you ran out of budget, you had the agonizing decision of which errors to allow through as being less glaring or crucial. I always say that people in my line of work need a healthy level of OCD, so that could be painful. The discipline it taught me stood me well for the rest of what's passed for my career.

Proofreading usually entailed double-reading the typeset text against the typescript copy from the author that had been marked up by the copy-editor. I did work on a couple of jobs where the original text was literally manuscript - handwritten - which made reading and mark-up for copy-editing a bit of a chore.

At the final stage on heavily illustrated books, one task was to balance the page lengths to give an aesthetically pleasing result and avoid widows (where the last line of a paragraph is stranded at the beginning of the text on the next page or column), and orphans (where the first line of a paragraph is stranded at the end of the text on the previous page or column). One way to do this was to introduce hyphenation at the end of lines earlier in the text, then knock back enough words to the previous lines to overcome them. If that wasn't an option or wouldn't work, you'd have to hunt for words that could be deleted (or added) to improve the text flow.

I don't know whether trainees in my field even learn to mark up on hard copy nowadays. I think having been through that training made me a better copy-editor now it's all done on computer. I couldn't wait to move to editing onscreen, and persuaded the main publisher I worked for to trial it on a couple of books. The move met with a surprising amount of resistance from the board, I suspect because many of them were of the generation that had secretaries and typists and no idea what to do with a PC. Eventually, of course, every publisher modernized.

We used to have to mail vast reams of paper copy across the country, mark it up, photocopy it all in case it got lost in the mail, then post it back to the publisher and hope it got there intact and on time. Sometimes we'd have to go through the same process with the authors as well before sending the typescript back to the publisher. Then we'd mail the publisher an invoice, and if we were lucky, eventually they'd mail us a cheque which we'd have to lodge at our bank and wait for it to clear. Now all those stages are done via electronic means, and words often don't hit paper at all until the book's printed.