Proofreading marks and symbols
Although a significant amount of editing and proofreading is now done using tools such as Microsoft’s track changes feature and Adobe’s commenting tool, you may find yourself faced with traditional proofreading marks and symbols on a printed document someday.
The following list shows some of the most common proofreading marks and symbols used by proofreaders and editors – and explains their meaning (note that some proofreaders will use different symbols than those shown here; if you see a symbol on a document and you’re not sure what it means, ask your proofreader).
Insert something; the text to be inserted will likely be provided in the margin
Delete
Close up space
Delete and close up
Add space
Transpose
Spell out
Make uppercase
Make lowercase
Let stand
Make equal space
Insert a comma
Insert period
Insert semicolon
Insert colon
Insert hyphen
Insert en dash
Insert em dash
Insert apostrophe
Insert question mark
Insert exclamation mark
Insert parentheses
Insert brackets
Insert quotation marks
Set as bold
Set as italics
Wrong font
Move left
Move right
Move up
Move down
Center
Begin paragraph