PDF documents

PDFs are the most common standard for sharing read-only documents of all types. They are also one of the most common document formats uploaded to Wordy. This popular file format was developed by Adobe in 1992 for documents with text and images. A PDF file contains a complete description of its contents, including the layout, text, fonts and any other information needed to display the document correctly, regardless of the application software, hardware or operating system.

PDFs can be produced by many applications, including those in the MS Office suite. In a Wordy context, since PDFs are read-only, an editor will annotate a PDF with comments with suggested changes rather than changing the text itself. Most editors will use Acrobat Reader when working on a PDF, although other tools are available. Customers may also need to use Acrobat Reader to view the annotations made by a Wordy editor.

Making such annotations is slower than changing the text. For example, adding a single comma requires the editor to click “insert text”, type a comma and then clock “post”. For that reason, some editors will avoid working on a PDF because doing so may not be cost-effective compared to other document formats. Moreover, each such annotation has to be subsequently applied by the customer to the original source document.

A traditional publishing workflow might look like this:

DOCX (author) → DOCX (editor) → PDF (typesetter) → annotated PDF (proofreader) → final PDF (printer)

So, PDFs are effectively proofread rather than copy-edited. The ethos of proofreading is to make minimal changes in comparison to the more substantial changes of a copy-edit because of the higher costs of making changes in a typeset document (a small change can affect the pagination, which then affects where headings, figures and tables are placed, the table of contents and so on). PDFs are most appropriate, in a Wordy context, for a final typeset document that needs minimal changes compared to a raw document from an author that needs numerous corrections. PDFs are good for documents with a lot of formatting, such as brochures and presentations. It is usually better to upload text-heavy documents to Wordy in a format such as DOCX.

When I work on a PDF, I first convert the PDF to a text file, open that in MS Word and save as DOCX. I use Word only for the spellchecking and grammar checking. Suggested changes are still applied to the PDF as annotations. If lots of changes are required to a sentence or paragraph, I’ll create a single annotation in the PDF with the new text rather than separately annotating each change. Although such block changes make it more difficult for the customer to see exactly what has changed, the customer should be able to apply the annotation as a single change to the source document.

Text embedded in images

From an editor’s perspective, a PDF contains two sorts of things: text and images. Text is selectable within Acrobat Reader whereas things in images are not. Only selectable text counts towards the word count. As jobs are priced and editors are paid based on the word count, any text embedded in an image will not be checked. If the images in a PDF contain a lot of text, it is likely that an editor will cancel the job and return it to the customer with a request that the document be uploaded again in a more suitable form, which may or may not be possible for a customer.

What kinds of document can I send to Wordy?

You can submit all sorts of written document to Wordy, provided the file format is one that Wordy accepts:

• advertisements
• articles
• biographies
• blog posts
• books
• book chapters
• CVs
• dissertations
• emails
• encyclopaedia entries
• flyers
• newsletters
• social media posts
• presentations
• reports
• spreadsheets
• theses
• white papers

… and probably some others I haven’t thought about.

Plain text files: TXT

 

TXT, along with DOCX, is one of the most common formats handled by Wordy. When a client pastes text into Wordy or types directly into the edit box, Wordy creates a TXT file for the editor to download. Users can also directly upload plain text documents with the file extension TXT. Plain text documents can be created with a text editor such as Notepad or apps such as MS Word.

TXT files do not support any form of formatting, figures, tracked changes or comments. They can be useful if the text has to be subsequently loaded into another system, such as a blogging, email or desktop publishing application like InDesign. Otherwise, however, you may find that it is easier to create your content in a word processing application such as MS Word and upload a DOCX to Wordy.

Your editor is likely to edit the document using word processing software such as Microsoft Word to take advantage of the built-in spelling and grammar checking. So, if you would prefer to receive the edited document in a different format, such as DOCX or PDF, send them a message. If you opt for DOCX, the document can have tracked changes.

Once editing is complete, your editor will upload the edited document to Wordy. The document could include comments or author queries, highlighted in some way depending on the format. Alternatively, your editor may post queries as messages in the job page in Wordy.

Wordy has a built-in comparison feature for TXT files, which is somewhat crude but effective. Alternatively, use a comparison app like WinMerge.

Microsoft Word: DOC and DOCX documents

DOCX, along with TXT, is probably the most common format uploaded to Wordy. It is the default file format for Microsoft Word, but can also be used by other editing applications, such as Apple’s Pages and LibreOffice. DOC is the older version of this format and is, essentially, redundant, but can still be uploaded to Wordy for checking.

Clients can include tables and figures in a DOCX. A number in a table will count as a single word and note that pricing (and what the editor gets paid) is based on the word count. A figure counts as one word, regardless of what it represents. Any text embedded in a figure does not count towards the word count and so will likely be ignored by your editor. A good editor, however, will usually point out errors in a figure (as comments, most likely) and will also cross-check figures, tables, captions and the text to ensure consistency of both content and form. Also note that it may be difficult for your editor to understand a technical text without the figures and tables. In summary, I would generally recommend including figures in your DOCX. Include tables if they contain much text.

Most editors will work on DOCX document using MS Word. For an editor, the main advantages of using MS Word are the multi-lingual spellchecking and grammar-checking options. I don’t speak French, but if a client uses the odd French word, I can check the spelling, including accents, using Word’s built-in French dictionary. 

For longer documents, I create a custom dictionary in Word, and I add to it all the words (like proper nouns) and abbreviations specific to the current document. This is particularly useful for things like product codes that are a mix of letters and numbers (like GPT-4) and invented words in a fictional piece, because I don’t want such miscellaneous words in my standard dictionary. The idea being that I want to scrutinise anything unusual at first sight and then either change globally or mark as correct. (You can do something similar using “Ignore all”, but that doesn’t work for pieces spread over two or more jobs in Wordy.)

Moreover, formatting can be applied consistently using Word’s styles. Finally, MS Word has powerful add-ons such as PerfectIt and MathType, which are useful for an editor.

For a client, the main advantages are tracked changes and comments. Tracked changes can quickly be reviewed and then accepted or rejected. Comments are used by an editor for raising author queries in context.

What file types does Wordy support? What should I use?

Documents come in a vast array of types. Wordy handles a number of common file types, namely Microsoft Word (DOC and DOCX), Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT and PPTX), Microsoft Excel (XLS and XLSX), Rich Text Format (RTF), Plain text (TXT), Adobe Acrobat (PDF), web pages (HTML), Markdown (MD) and LaTeX (TEX).

There are advantages and disadvantages of each type, which I will discuss in the related articles for the file types.

With the exception of TXT files, these file types support formatting, which includes, fonts, formatted maths and images. DOC, DOCX and RTF also support tracked changes. Not all editors work with all file formats, especially technical ones such as HTML and LaTeX.

I have a document in a format that Wordy does not support. What should I do?

First, it depends on whether the document can be converted to a format that Wordy supports. If it’s a graphics or the text is embedded in images, then it is unlikely that the document can be simply converted. For such documents, you could try using OCR software to convert it to text.

So, your main options are as follows:

1. Convert the document yourself to a format supported by Wordy.
2. Send the document to support@wordy.com for conversion.
3. Send the document to sales@wordy.com to see if they can create a job for you. This should take no more than an hour (according to the FAQ).

Open document formats are relatively easy to convert. Although they are fairly standard, they are not supported by Wordy for some reason. File types include ODT (word processing), ODS (spreadsheet) and ODP (presentation).

Graphical documents include JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF, etc.

There are still other formats, such as XPS and XML. It is possible that these can be converted. They are not formats that I have much experience of.

Here are some the save options available in MS Word: 

What would you recommend?

Say you’ve produced a PDF to send out to clients. It has some fancy formatting, images and lots of text. All that formatting took as long to do if not longer than writing the text. You had to juggle things around, try out different font sizes and so on to make everything fit elegantly on the pages. Making even small changes to the text could mess everything up. A lot depends on how much your editor wants to change (and they should be able to justify every change based on dictionaries, good grammar, consistency, etc.).

A better approach ­– and one more akin to traditional publishing – is to write the words in MS Word with minimal formatting. Add the figures if they’re things like diagrams or screenshots that the text is explaining, as these may be useful for your editor. Each figure counts as a single word, so they won’t add much to the overall price. Upload the DOCX to Wordy. Once it has been edited, download the file and import it into whatever software you like to build the PDF. You should find that this process takes less work than going straight to the PDF.

Proofreading certificate

To ensure that the language used is of an acceptable quality, some publishers insist that authors provide a proofreading certificate before accepting a manuscript for publication. Academic referees often reject papers that are too poorly written. Such certificates are not a standard feature of Wordy. Some of our editors will happily produce such a certificate if asked (as just a simple PDF, but possibly with a digital signature), so try asking your editor. Alternatively, the support team should be able to oblige.

I’ve got a blank page instead of the dashboard. What’s going on?

There’s a known bug in the system, which the developers have not yet been able to fix properly. It seems to get resolved for months but then comes back with a vengeance. Fortunately, there is a workaround, which the second-line support team can implement for you. Please email the Support team (support@wordy.com).