1. Reviewing with MS Word

Microsoft Word has various functions to track changes you make to a document, like adding and deleting text and objects, or changing format. This chapter will give an introduction into why and how to use this function and what it can do.

a) Why?

We use this function in order to track any changes our proofreaders make in a document we sent them. This function enables us to find all changes made with just a mouse click, and to either accept or reject any or all changes with another mouse click. Also, it enables the proofreader to make comments in so-called comment notes which are not inserted in the text itself (where they would disturb), but in a separate window. This way, a proofreader can explain a change, ask in case of unclarities, or make suggestions for larger changes. This function saves both the proofreader and the editing person huge amounts of time and makes sure that all changes are tracked and dealt with.

b) How and What?

If you open a MS Word document, Word opens a set of toolbars according to your program's default settings (as stored in you Normal.dot template). The Reviewing toolbar usually is turned off, because it is used only occasionally and hence in the way most of the time. But when reviewing text with us, you will need to display it. To do this, do the following:

a) Click on the menu option "View" to open its drop down menu. Go down to the item "Toolsbars >" (if it doesn show up, you need to expand the entire drop down menu by clicking on the double down-arrows at its end). When hovering your mouse over "Toolbars >", another drop-down menu opens. Its entires are alphabetically sorted. To open the reviewing Toolbar, click on the entry "Reviewing" so it gets selected. This opens the Reviewing toolbar which you will need for all proofreading chnages/additions you will make.

b) The Reviewing toolbar is devided into four subsection of icons (comming whith context notes when hovering over them with a mouse), two of which are most important:

i) the five leftmost icons represent commenting functions. They allow the insertion of a comment note in a separate window (leftmost icon), the editing of an existing comment (second from left; you need to have at least one comment in your document to be able to edit, of course), to jump from one comment to another and backwords (next two icons), and to delete a comment. Comments are unprintable items, i.e., even if we at the receiving end forget to delete one, they will never show up in a printed document - thank god! So if you want to add a comment to the text, please do NOT write it into the text itself, but put it in a comment note.

ii) the next five ions are the most important ones: Tracking and handling changes. If the leftmost icon of this block is selected (light grey color), then everything you do to the text will be automatically highlighted, deleted text will not disapear, but will be marked as strickthrough. Format changes are underlined.
So do not be irritated if text you delete simply won't go away. The reason for this is that we, at the receiving end of your proofreading, need to be able to see what you deleted, so Word marks it with a strickthrough.
Since all changes are tracked this way, please do NOT add anything that is not supposed to be in the final text. For instance: some proofreaders have the habit to add changes they recommend in brackets, or to write a comment in brackets into the text. DO NOT DO THAT! Comments belong in comment notes, and if brackets/paratheses/braces aren't supposed to be in the text, do not add them. The neat thing with Word's tracking function is that it not only highlights changes, but it allows to jump from one to another. So there is no reason whatsover to add anything else to the actual text/format change.
(Note: The color and ways of highlighting changes used by Word can be changed in the Tools/Options/Track Changes menu, but I recommend to leave it as it is).
The next two icons are used to have Word jump from one change to the next, which is used by us when checking your changes.
The next two icons are used to either accept or reject a change you made. Please do not use the "Accept Change" icon, since this renders changes invisible/untrackable for us. But you will sometimes need the "Reject Change" icon: If you want to undo certain change(s) which is/are not the last one(s) you made, you cannot use Word's undo function (as this would undo all the changes backwards up to the change you want to undo), but you have to use the reject icon of the toolbar, which is the rightmost of the five tracking icons. To reject a change you made, simply place the insertion mark on the changed text and click the "Reject Change" icon, which turns it back to how the text originally was.

iii) The highlight tool is like a marker pen and can be used to change the background color behind certain letters/words/phrases. I would ask you not to use this if possible, but to stick to comment notes and simple changes, since one cannot jump from one highlighted text spot to another, and because it has to be removed manually.

iv) The three rightmost icons allow the creation of an Outlook task - which we don't use -, the saving of a certain version of your correction, if you do not want to overwrite the original or other older versions. But since you should track all changes anyway, there is no need to save a variety of versions. And the last icon allows you to send the Word file as it is by email attachment. In order to reduce downloading time, we generally prefer to first compress all the files you proofread before sending them back to us (see next section), for which you have to leave Word. So we ask you not to use this feature either. 

2. Compressing Files

We remove all pictures and graphics from our files before we send them to you, since there is nothing to be proofread in pictures, and because pictures often make up 80-90% of the file size and usually cannot be compressed. In order to reduce the size of Word files we send around by email even further, we prefer sending them as zip-compressed files, which gives us another reduction by some 60-90%. Our usual files size of articles is something between 100 and 500 KB, but when sent compressed, they are something between 10 and 50 KB only, which means that they download in just a few seconds even if you have only a 56K modem connection.
We us the programs Winzip for our compression (available from www.winzip.com for $29), but other programs, like StuffIt (from http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/ for FREE!), do the job just as well. If you need help, please let us know and we can get you setup with this.