The Publication Date

[justcarol67]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince
Winston)" <catlady at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67"
> <justcarol67@> wrote:
> 
> > There are other steps as well--typecoding, proofreading, book design,
> 
> What is typecoding?
>
Carol:
Oh, my. How can I explain? Typecoding, also called manuscript markup,
involves providing certain codes for the typesetter to indicate a
specific font or typesize or other element of the book design. For
example, a particular code might be used to indicate a drop capital at
the beginning of a chapter or an extracted quotation. A letter might
be set in a different typeface from the rest of the text (for example
Hagrid's letters in the HP books--the American designer may even have
incorporated the tear splotches as well as the font into the design,
and the typecoder would need to invent a specific code, say <haglet>
to indicate a letter from Hagrid to be set in that particular style.
Other codes, say CT for chapter title or UNL for unnumbered list, are
farily standard if not universal among American publishers. (I've
never typecoded a manuscript for a British publisher, but it can't be
very different.)

Ideally, the author's manuscript is submitted in some standard
12-point font, say Times New Roman, and double-spaced throughout, with
no formatting other than, say, centered chapter titles and possibly
double-indentation for long quotations. The typecoder (usually not the
same person as the copyeditor) marks up the manuscript so that the
typesetter can format it to match the book design. Sometimes the
typecoding is done electronically using MS Word or some other program;
sometimes it's done by hand on a printed version of the manuscript.
Each publisher uses slightly different codes and each manuscript is
different, but usually it's a fairly simple process. 

Make sense?

Carol, who never appreciated the amount of work involved in producing
a book before she became an assistant production editor and still
prefers copyediting to any other step in the process