The Prooof-readere

Ooops, sorry: proof-reader.

Do you know any other industry that advertises its mistakes? Errata lists, sometimes called ‘faults corrected’, and sometimes appearing as a paste-in or insert, were a regular feature of printed books from the earliest days of printing until the twentieth century.

But no printer wants advertising like that. To avoid it, proof-readers were commonly employed as highly valued members of a printing office. Their job was to look for mistakes made either by the writers or by printers on behalf of the writers.

Proof-readers understood perfect printing. They were skilled in spotting bad composition, such as uneven spacing and wrong founts. They had a faultless knowledge of spelling and knew that ‘organisation’ was spelt with a ‘s’ and ‘fertilizer’ with a ‘z’. They also had exemplary general knowledge and an instinct for when there was something wrong with the author’s copy. The proof-reader was the printer’s watchdog who ensured that all work was as accurate as possible.

Material was given to the proof-reader either as galley or page proofs. They first ‘ruled the copy’ on the galley by running a rule one line at a time down the proofs to look for ‘literals’ – mistakes in the printing, grammar, or style. Then, as a check, the original material was read aloud to to the proof-reader while they concentrated on the proofs to ensure nothing was omitted, added, or misplaced.

Page proofs were more difficult. The proof-reader had to ensure the right diagrams were in the right place with the right captions, had to check for word and line breaks, that margins were even, and that facing pages matched up precisely.

A good proof-reader was the upholder of standards in any decent printing office. No press worth its salt would have been without one.

First published by Print Week as part of a series of columns authored by Caroline Archer-Parré, and entitled ‘Prints Past’.