Typo gremlins

Webbo

Webbo

Grandpa — 30/07/2005 23:51:55
Hello everyone,
Some postings under the “Writing through the night” thread mention that for some obscure reason, proof-reading from a print-out usually reveals typos that go un-seen if text is read from the screen.
Those typo-gremlins invariably homed-in on my efforts – even single page letters – until I turned the tables on them by the simple trick of using the zoom feature in order to temporarily display the text at a far high per-centage size during the ‘de-bugging’ read.
Give it a test drive – it could work for you, too.

Jacey — 31/07/2005 10:17:24
Hi Grandpa,
What a good tip - I'm going to give it a try!

lindatorbay

I recommend Readplease, a free software you can download which then reads out your words to you in a choice of voices. All those wobbly bits jump out when they're read aloud.  Just put readplease into a search engine, you should find it easily. Go for the free version, it's good enough. Frankly I'd be lost without it.

Jenny

Just copying Dora by random clicking on archive pages ...

The advice re Readplease looks interesting!

forget-me-not

Yeah, Readplease sounds quite good. Anyone tried it?

SusieM

I've just downloaded this. Good for seeing if there are any obvious mistakes and if it flows right but the voices are awful. Will use it if I'm not sure on some passages though.

Carol

I just noticed one in the June WM competition pages. The entry forms have got their titles muddled. The short story form is actually the poetry form, and vice versa. :)

Stan2

Oh!

collide-o-scope

I think one of the reasons typos are more easily spotted on a printed page is that the spellchecker is not underlining anything. Reading on the screen the checker draws your attention to mis-spelled words and you can miss the odd one in between. So, for example, a typo of 'bone' where you meant to type 'none' may slip under the radar on the screen, but it would be picked up on the printed page.