Opinion: Nothing can ruin the most beautifully designed and printed work faster than blatant spelling and typographical errors.As I was paging through the newspaper on Monday, one particular headline grabbed my attention: "Fixing the outsource of tne problem" (Los Angeles Daily News, October 17, 2005).
Oh, No! I thought, Now what? With so much going on in the world, I hadn't even heard of the "tne" problem.
Actually, my first real thought was, how could such a blatant error—in half-inch high type, no less—get through the production process and find its way into print?
Some people might not have even noticed the error, simply seeing the headline's intent instead of the actual content. Many might dismiss or excuse this kind of error based on the fact that a daily newspaper needs to be produced on an extremely tight deadline.
Yet nothing can ruin the most beautifully designed and printed work faster than blatant spelling and typographical errors.
So, regardless of your position in the graphic communications food chain, there are a few simple steps that can help keep blatant and potentially costly errors from ruining your work (and your reputation):
1. Most design software includes some form of spell-checking utility. Use it. That said...
2. Do not trust the automatic spell-check utility in your software.
Carefully review each suspect word that is caught by the spell-checker. If you simply click Replace to every suspect without reviewing the possibilities, you might as well skip Step 1.
Spell check utilities are useful, but they are not infallible (especially when dealing with proper nouns or scientific/technical terms). For example, I wrote a paper in college about the Holocaust; the spell-checker kept trying to replace "Hitler" with "hit her".
3. Buy a dictionary, preferably an unabridged one. Use it.
4. Keep an eye out for homophones, whether pure or dialectic.
In the February 2005 issue of Graphic Arts Monthly, for example, I noticed the announcement that "[NAPL] released a revised addition of Customer-Centered Production…"
Now, technically, the book could have been an addition to NAPL's catalog of publications. But since I worked on producing the book in question, I know that the new book was an EDition, not an ADDition.
5. Carefully check the spelling of any frequently appearing elements, such as the company name. It is easy to overlook an error in a familiar element precisely because those elements are so familiar.
One publisher, for example, produced a book with the publisher's own name misspelled on the cover. No one at the publisher noticed the error (even on the proofs) until the book was printed and bound.
6. Take the time to check the content in the pieces you produce. Even when deadlines are short, an extra half-hour before something goes to press can prevent many hours of downtime when an error is noticed at a press check.
7. When you print final proofs, actually check those proofs before sending files to print. It is extremely common to create a layout, carefully proof it, then make "just one more minor change" before sending the file to print. That one minor change is where a lot of errors creep in.
8. If you see something wrong that the client didn't catch, let them know about it.
There's no real way to know how often this happens, but I'm sure it does: Someone in production notices an error, but is afraid to say anything because correcting the problem will require a break in the production workflow.
First, it far better and faster to correct a problem before it becomes a crisis, even if that means briefly stopping production to check with the client about a possibly needed change.
Most clients will not be upset if you catch the problem before it gets printed, but they will certainly be upset if you don't catch it. And they might look for someone else to blame -- you and your company.
By claiming that these errors are "not your problem", you will almost certainly lose favor and possibly the client's business. By helping clients eliminate or prevent this type of error, you can be a hero.
