[bksvol-discuss] Re: Which software is best for proofreading?
- From: "Mayrie ReNae" <mayrierenae@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 19:24:46 -0800
Hi Debee,
K1000 can be counted upon for the most part to be accurate as far as
paragraph marks are concerned. The only real issue comes when the
scanner/submitter of a book did not ignore line endings when recognizing the
book. This, however, can be fixed. It is a little time consuming, but I
have found it to be effective. I do not recommend this technique (see
below) with poetry. You'll kill all of the line breaks. But it works with
straight text.
The character string that denotes a paragraph mark in K1000 is \n.
Very often text is OCRed with extra paragraph marks in it. You can do a
find and replace to get rid of these. For each letter of the alphabet, you
can do the following:
In the find box of the find and replace dialogue type \na (that is back
slash, n a)
You want to make sure to pay attention to case sensitivity.
In the replace box type (space a).
This will join lines of text that OCRed into two paragraphs that shouldn't
have been separate paragraphs.
Make sure to use lower case letters or you'll trash all paragraph marks and
be in a world of curses!
I do this with every letter of the alphabet in lower case.
Also, very often dialogue gets condensed into one paragraph where it
shouldn't be.
You can search for " " (quotation mark, space, quotation mark) and replace
with "\n" that is (quotation mark, backslash n, quotation mark). This will
separate dialogue that didn't get separated by the OCR process.
This hasn't been one of my more brilliantly worded descriptions, so,
please, feel free to tell me I've been unclear if you need better
description. Also, feel free to ignore me.
Happy proofreading.
I agree with you, by the way. I also prefer working in K1000. I'm
a die hard member of the "I HATE WORD" club. You wouldn't believe how
terribly sluggish it is on my machine! Makes me crazy! Not that I have far
to go to achieve that, even on a good day. Laugh.
Again, happy proofreading.
Mayrie
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Deborah Armstrong
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2009 6:14 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Which software is best for proofreading?
I haven't read this list since 2003, but I have kept up with understanding
the new volunteer responsibilities. In the past, I simply gave bookshare a
DVD full of tiff files, but now I'm trying to proofread some of the other
people's scans. Also since bookshare has standardized on RTF files, I assume
they are no longer interested in images.
I'm proofreading a book now and am curious what software other screen reader
users find most efficient for fixing errors.
I work for a college and have access to plenty of choices. I love working
in K1000, but am a bit worried about where paragraph breaks are located and
if they're accurate. When I read myself, I don't care about paragraphs, and
now I'm trying to be more thorough.
In Microsoft Word, I can tell exactly where its paragraph marks are, but I'm
concerned it might be adding unwanted page breaks. Also in Word, I have to
spell-check chronologically; the ranked spelling in K1000 is more efficient.
K1000 announces pages by number when you move there, with word it takes more
keystrokes to locate the number Word thinks the page is.
In both Word and K1000, it takes three keystrokes to delete a line; I kind
of wish I had an editor that would do this with a single stroke. Truth is, I
do a lot of editing in emacs, but that won't work for RTF files.
I'm leaning towards Word, but I don't get the ranked spelling there. But in
K1000, can I trust the RTF files it saves? Will they be as good as an RTF
saved from Word? And there is still the paragraph concern in K1000.
I use JAWS together with a Braille display. I use speech to read, and
Braille to check anything that does not sound right. In a pinch, I can use
an Optacon to check the book, if I have access to it, as well.
I actually have never found the keystrokes for selecting text to be
particularly quick or efficient in Windows. Oh for the DOS days were editors
were more keyboard friendly!
Maybe some of you use a program that's even more effective than either Word
or K1000. What's your favorite?
I scan and spot validate books for a living, so I know how to do it; just
not how bookshare wants it these days. Also, in my job, I typically keep the
files in Kurzweil or convert the files to text. Overall just shipping
bookshare a DVD full of images was easiest, but I decided I should be less
lazy.
--Debee
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