[bksvol-discuss] Re: Which software is best for proofreading?
- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 23:38:14 -0500
Hi Debee. I think this is a matter of preference more than anything else.
Bookshare doesn't care what program you use for proofreading as long as it
retains page breaks. We have volunteers using a wide range of software for
proofreading including OpenOffice, WordPerfect, and an rtf editor on the Mac
whose name I can't remember. One of Bookshare's strengths is its flexibility
so that each volunteer can use the tools that help us get our work done.
I do all of my proofreading in Kurzweil. As you mentioned, rank spelling is
more convenient. It also has a two-keystroke method for selecting text no
matter whether it's a line or an entire page of text. It takes much longer
to select the same amount of text in Word. I've found that Kurzweil is
accurate when displaying lines of text as well as paragraph and page breaks.
I generally run rank spelling on a scan and fix obvious scannos that occur
multiple times in the book. Rank spelling lets you read misspelled words in
context, so spotting a true scanning error is easy to do. Once this is done,
I use Kurzweil to read the book and fix other scannos rank spelling might
miss like die for the or mat for that. Some people I work with do rank
spelling in Kurzweil and then actually read their rtf file in Word. It's a
combo approach.
Other volunteers like to use Word. I did that for about nine months and
concluded that it wasn't a good fit for me. People like Laura Ann, Sue, and
Susan do a masterful job with Word. For them, it is obviously the right
choice.
Once you find a program where you feel comfortable, you'll become faster and
more confident about proofreading. That's when you know you're in the right
program working the right way for you.
Monica Willyard
"The best way to predict the future is to create it." -- Peter Drucker
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