DESIGN/CODING Flashcards
Designer
Someone who designs the document and creates a template for the typesetter to follow.
Typeface
The specific design of the set of characters used to create a text. Often referred to as a font, although that term is strictly a subdivision of a typeface, which can be thought of as a family of fonts. For instance, a document may use the typeface Arial, where the body text font is Arial Regular 11 points and headings are Arial Bold 14 points. Each typeface has a different design and takes up different amounts of space on the page.
Captions
The explanatory words that appear below (or above or beside) an illustration or figure.
What is coding?
One essential copyediting task is to identify all the elements of a text that need to be
presented in a particular way according to the design specification. One way to do this is to
add typesetting labels, or codes. This process is called coding or tagging.
You need to identify each element in the text. A common way of doing this is to use codes
consisting of (usually) one or two letters within angle brackets or square brackets. For
instance, the code for a main heading may be <a>, with subsequent levels of headings being
indicated as <b>, <C> etc. Enclosing your codes in brackets tells the typesetter that this is a
typesetting code, not characters to be inserted in the text.</C></b></a>
Example of a start and end code
<a>This is a main heading</a>
It does not matter which code you choose as long as you supply a list of the codes used and
their meanings – and the typesetter can easily distinguish the codes from the text. Choose
codes that are easily identifiable, and do not use the same code for more than one design
element. Some clients will have a list of preferred codes: if so, make sure that you use them.
Where should I include codes?
You should type the coding directly into the text, not in a Word comment balloon. You could
use a coloured font for the codes, so they stand out from the main text. Red is good, but any colour that stands out will do the job. You can set up your coloured codes as AutoText in Word, so you don’t need to constantly change the colour of your font throughout the document.
You do not usually need to code elements such as bold or italic within the body of the text.
Apply these features directly in Word and they should carry over to the typesetting software.
Standfirst
Usually the first sentence of a journalistic piece set in larger type and apart from the main text to catch the reader’s eye and give an idea of what the article is about.
Call-outs
A quote taken from the body of an article and displayed in a prominent way as a design feature.
Displayed matter
Any text feature that is broken off from the running text and set out separately, such as a heading, a mathematical equation, a bullet list, a long prose quotation or a piece of poetry, perhaps formatted and aligned differently from the main text. Displayed material usually has a space preceding it and following it, to make clear its separation from the main text; when copyediting, displayed matter needs to be assigned a style or a code/tag so that the designer can specify a typographic treatment for its layout on the typeset page.
Abstract
A summary of an academic work that appears at the beginning of that work and can be published separately.
Full-out
Not indented; adjoining the left or right margin.
