Office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities

Text Editing Reference Guide

525 West 120th Street, Box 105 General Office: (212) 678-3689

Thorndike Hall, Room 166 Deaf & Hard of Hearing Services:

New York, NY 10027 V/TTY (212) 678-3853

Fax: (212) 678-3793

Each semester our students bring us textbooks that need to be converted from paper to electronic text. This conversion requires a four-step process:

1.  Copy the paper text

2.  Scan the copy into a Microsoft Word document

3.  Edit the text of the electronic file for accuracy

4.  Download to assistive device (floppy disk, CD, roadrunner, etc.)

Your role would come into play in step 3…text editing.

Text editing consists of comparing the electronic Word document with the original paper copy to ensure that the electronic copy is accurate and for the most part a mirror image of the paper book.

Text Conversion Directions:

An electronic book should be a mirror image of the paper book.

·  Formats

OASID scans the material into Word and saves it on a disk. It is important that the edited text is saved and returned to us as a Word document unless we specify otherwise. We ask that all text be maintained in Word documents because each student requests the text in different formats. If we are emailing the text to a student who will use a screen reader, it is best to leave the book in Word documents because they maintain the original formatting which screen readers can read (screen readers can navigate through tables). For students who ask for the text to be put on a roadrunner, we save the text as a text (.txt) file. For those who want the text converted to an MP3 and burned onto a disk, we can use the Word doc or a .txt file.

·  Amount of Text per Editor

We tend to give out 4-5 chapters to each editor, although, when possible, we may give whole books to one person to be worked on throughout the semester, according to the students’ syllabi.

·  Graphs/ Charts/ Tables/ Pictures, etc.

When converting a book, it is important to know for whom we are converting the book.

When converting text for a sighted student who will be using the electronic book in addition to the printed book, it is not important to maintain graphs, tables, charts, etc. Instead, we would delete the image and insert an editorial note referring the student to the page in the paper text where the graph, chart, and/or table can be found.

When converting text for a student who will rely solely on the electronic version of the book, it is important that the graphs, charts, and tables be maintained. When possible include tables as they appear in the book. It may be easiest to insert a table and fill it in rather than trying to use what the scanner maintained. For pictures, graphs, charts and other images that cannot be maintained true to the paper copy, delete what appears and in its place type a detailed description, in paragraph form. In instances where the graph, etc. is very detailed, give us a call and we can try to help you out. Whether you are able to maintain a table or need to delete an image, ALWAYS include an editorial note that identifies the figure, graph or image and in cases where the image is too complex to annotate, include a note indicating:

Editorial note: Figure 2.2 Bell curve illustrating number of individuals with disabilities registered with OASID from 1990 to 2004. This figure is very complex and is not reproduced within this text. Please refer to page 72 for the figure. End of note.

See attached examples for ideas on how to appropriately annotate an image that is reproducible in text format.

·  Pagination

Page numbers should be included in a consistent manner, so we ask that you include just the actual number at the top left of each page. It is only necessary to include the number; you do not need to indicate that it is a page number with the word “page”. For all text, it is important that you insert page breaks as they naturally occur in the printed book. This enables the student navigate through the electronic book in a more efficient manner using the page down and up options.

·  Symbols

On occasion, you will find special characters with accent marks, or Greek symbols. If you are editing text for a student who is blind or visually impaired or a student who is sighted please replace special characters such as:

© £ « é π Σ

with their meanings or a plain letter (ie. “ é ” becomes “e” and “ π ” becomes “pie”). You may find that it works well to use the find/ replace function in the “edit” tab on the Word toolbar.

·  Formatting: Bolds & Italics

In most cases, it is not necessary to maintain bolding and italics in the electronic text. On occasion, however, we will ask that you do. This happens when a student who will rely solely on the electronic book plans to use a screen reader to access the text. The student can fine-tune the screen reader to indicate bolding and italics. This is especially important when converting reference type books (ie. the APA Publication Manual).

·  Numbering (ie. lists, references, notes)

When editing a numbered list, the reference section or the notes, please be sure to manually number them. Auto numbering, a feature of Microsoft Word, is not accessible to individuals accessing the material via a screen-reader. If the computer is automatically numbering lists, delete the numbers completely and go back and manually enter them.

·  Footnotes

When editing a document with footnotes or references (typically included as superscripted superscripted numbers), remove the superscript and include the footnote or reference number as follows:

[Footnote 22] or [Ref. 22] or [Refs 22, 24]

The actual footnote should be moved to the end of the document. Consistently dealing with footnotes in this way will provide our students with easier navigation of these footnotes as they will be able to use the find feature to locate the matching footnote at the end of the document.

Text Editing Quick Reference Guide

File Type / ·  Edited text must be saved and returned to us as a Word document unless we specify otherwise

Amount of

text per editor / ·  We tend to give out 4-5 chapters to each editor, although, when possible, we may give whole books to one person to be worked on throughout the semester, according to the students’ syllabi.
Graphs/ Charts/ Tables/ Pictures/ Images, etc. / ·  For readers who are sighted: delete the image and insert a note referring the student to the page in the paper text where the graph, chart, and/or table can be found.
·  For readers who are B/VI*: Include tables as they appear in the book. For pictures, graphs, charts and other images that cannot be maintained true to the paper copy, delete what appears and in its place type an “editorial note” accompanied by a detailed description, in paragraph form.

Pagination

/ ·  Insert page breaks as they naturally occur in the printed book.
·  Insert page numbers in the upper left hand corner of each page.
Symbols / ·  For students who are B/VI or sighted, replace special characters such as: © £ « é π Σ with their meanings or a plain letter (ie. “ é ” becomes “e” and “ π ” becomes “pie”).
Font Formatting - Bold & Italics / ·  Put entire document into Times New Roman, point 12 font. Single-space the entire document. Maintain bolding and italics when indicated by OASID**.
Numbering / ·  Manually number lists, footnotes, references, bibliographies, notes, etc. Do not allow for auto-numbering.
Footnotes / ·  Remove superscripts sighting footnotes, references, etc. within the document and include the number in brackets. [Footnote 2] or [Reference 2] Place the footnotes at the end of the document.

* B/VI = blind/ visually impaired

** OASID = Office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities