Editing and Proofreading Checklists

Review the text to ensure good grammar, syntax and style.

Ensure consistency of terminology.

Do a spell-check.

Ensure federal and departmental publishing policies and guidelines have been respected.

Ensure names of government departments and agencies are correct.

Spot-check names and spellings of people, positions, strategies, initiatives, etc., for accuracy.

Spot-check charts and tables for accuracy and suitability.

Spot-check notes, sources and other reference matter for accuracy and proper formatting.

Replace % with percent (except in figures and tables).

Replace & with and (except in company names and colloquialisms).

Change Montreal to Montréal.

Change Quebec to Québec (for the city only).

Search for which, double-check for proper usage (vs. that).

Search for i.e. and e.g., double-check surrounding punctuation.

Replace misused hyphens with em dashes or en dashes as appropriate.

Ensure proper word hyphenation.

Use smart quotation marks and apostrophes.

Check capitalization (especially: World Wide Web, website, Internet, intranet).

Ensure proper use of abbreviations and acronyms.

Ensure proper number format.

Ensure proper punctuation (especially with quotation marks and reference numbers).

Verify formatting of all website and email addresses.

Verify all names of laws and put them in italics.

Ensure Canada Post address format is used.

Use 1-800 phone numbers with hyphens (e.g. 1-800-999-9999).

Ensure consistent format of lists (especially grammatical construction, capitalization and punctuation).

Remove unnecessary formatting (bold, italics and underlining)

Conduct an English–French comparison on texts originally written in French.

Ensure that all elements of the original text appear in the typeset version (use the final, approved manuscript for comparison).

Check for FIP compliance on the cover (Industry Canada corporate signature and Canada wordmark).

Verify all information on the title page (title, date of publication, responsible branch and/or sector).

Verify all information on the copyright page.

Check preliminary page numbers: small Roman numerals, counting the title page as "i" (preliminary page numbering is often not used if there are only a few preliminary pages).

Check main text page numbers: Arabic, counting the first page of the main text as "1" (which is usually suppressed).

Check all Contents headings against corresponding text headings.

Check all Contents page numbers against corresponding text.

Check all headers and footers (usually suppressed on preliminary pages and on page 1 of the main text).

Check for consistency in heading levels throughout the text.

Check for consistent spacing between paragraphs, sections, bullets, etc.

Ensure consistent use of fonts, drop caps, graphic elements, etc.

Verify any cross-references in the text.

Ensure that tables and figures appear after they are referenced in the text.

Ensure that all footnotes appear on the same page as the number reference.

Clean up column and page breaks.

Clean up word division at ends of lines.

Read through the text for typos.

Conduct an English–French comparison on texts originally laid out in French.

Ensure that all elements of the final, approved, camera-ready text appear in the printer's proofs (compare line-by-line).

Verify ink colours and intensity on every page.

Make sure there are no scratches, blobs or other unintended marks on every page.

Make sure the document is assembled correctly.

Ask only for essential corrections.

Ensure there is a logical order of Contents.

Ensure there are logical page breaks between sections (10 printed pages maximum, but the fewer the better).

Modify "For additional copies..." clause to read "For a print copy..."

Remove the electronic formats clause.

Remove the permission to reproduce notice.

Add any special copyright messages required.

Make sure the IC Registration Number is specific to the HTML version.

Remove the availability in French clause.

Remove the Printed in Canada logo and Möbius loop.

Ensure that all elements that appear in the printed document appear in the HTML version.

Ensure that a JPEG file of the cover of the printed document appears at the top of the first page, if possible.

Ensure that indenting is used in block quotations only.

Ensure that underlining is used only for hyperlinks.

Ensure that italics are used only for titles of publications, Acts and French or foreign words.

Ensure only bold type or quotation marks are used for emphasized text.

Ensure that there is no text in full capitals (except acronyms and initialisms).

Ensure that there are no non-government corporate identifiers (such as the Adobe Acrobat symbol) anywhere in the text.

Ensure there is a line space between each bulleted text item if the text in each bullet is long.

Ensure that links appear as names or words, and not as web addresses.

Ensure that links to PDF files also have their size and number of pages indicated in parentheses.

Ensure that an appropriate file name appears in the top left corner of each page.

Ensure that page references become links, and delete any print-related words (e.g. "See the following page") and insert links.

Check for non-breaking spaces and hyphens. Ensure that words and numbers are not cut off at the ends of lines.

Ensure that all links work.

If hyperlinks must open into a new window because the content can only be presented effectively in a larger screen width, indicate next to the link that a new browser window will open and that the user must close this window to return to the original page.

Check all text tags, summary tags and ALT tags for language quality.

Ensure that all acronyms and abbreviations are coded.

Modify "For additional copies…" clause to read "For a print copy…"

Modify the electronic formats clause to specify that the publication is also available in HTML.

Add any special copyright messages required.

Make sure the catalogue number, ISBN or ISSN, and IC Registration Number are specific to the PDF version.

Ensure there is an availability in French clause.

Remove the Printed in Canada logo and Möbius loop.

Ensure that all elements that appear in the printed document appear in the PDF version.

Check for changes in font types.

Check for corrupted graphics.

Carefully proofread any retyped text (e.g. bookmarks).

Make sure that all bookmarks work.

Make sure that all links within the text work.