Services – Prepress Projects

We make everything go smoothly

Publishing services for professionals

Prepress Projects can provide the gamut of publishing services from thorough copy-editing and proofreading to full project management. We can offer illustration and picture editing services as well as writing copy.

From the smallest detail to the big picture, we can work at all levels with the same high quality and attention to detail, so you can be sure your publishing project will be looked after with professional care.

Project management

We can manage your project from beginning to end, from author to XML, from cover to cover.

Whatever your publishing need, we can find a solution, be it conventional copy-editing or custom CSS.

And we’ll never forget that the client comes first. Our staff are trained to coordinate and communicate. They don’t have to be trained to care.

We will coordinate everything and everyone, including:

academic authors and editors
writers and journalists
copy-editors, proofreaders and indexers
designers and illustrators
typesetters
software and web developers
advertisers
printers and distributors

We can also construct custom production workflows that promote quality and productivity. These workflows can include automation based on small apps or scripts that we create in-house.

Saving just 1 hour of time per person per day in a complex production process can amount to many hours saved each week or month, and our apps have often saved more time than that for our clients. And it isn’t all about saving time: a well-designed workflow, or a carefully constructed app, can help achieve higher levels of quality compared with processes where people have no automation or tools to help get the job done.

Editorial office management

Let us manage your editorial office – we run responsive editorial offices for leading research journals.

We are very familiar with dealing with journal editors and authors and coordinating the peer review process.

We know how to get the most out of the latest web-based electronic editorial office systems, such as ScholarOne Manuscripts. Our editorial office co-ordinators attend ScholarOne University, typically within 9 to 12 months of joining our editorial office team.

Our editorial staff will deal with all submitted articles exactly as you wish, arrange for peer review and chase late reviews.

We support small as well as large journals. Some might require only a few hours weekly and others require almost full-time attention. Similarly, we offer comprehensive maternity or illness cover.

When your journal editors change, the transition will be seamless.

Our staff are familiar with travelling to, and arranging, editorial board meetings and they are confident in dealing with even the most demanding of academic editors.

Digital services

XML output

We provide XML output for both books and journals using BITS, JATS and NLM. In fact, we are members of the JATS4R group and take an active role in the development of JATS tagging and best practice recommendations.

If your publishing programme requires XML output then we can help. If you need a custom DTD, then we can help with that too. If the XML you need is complex, with lots of attributes and hidden structure, well, we already produce complex XML for other clients. And if you need XML transformed using XSL, e.g to create data feeds (see below), we have lots of relevant experience of doing exactly that.

Talk to us about what you want and why you want it; we may well have solved your XML problem already.

Metadata

We can manage and distribute metadata for books and journal articles. We are experienced in registering content with Crossref (they tell us we supply some of the most comprehensive metadata of all their members) and managing DOIs.

We also have extensive experience of providing metadata for citation services such as PubMed. If you would like us to register DOIs or talk about making your metadata available, please speak to us.

eBooks

It’s easy to create ePub novels, but ePubs for academic texts containing tables, figures, boxes and equations can pose problems. If you plan to publish academic material on a Kindle or iPad, or another eBook platform, we can offer advice and guidance on the most appropriate route to follow.

If you want to publish using iBooks Author, but don’t know how go about converting your content into a professional iBook, then we can help with that too. Just ask us.

Text services

Copy-editing

Dependent or dependant?
Adverse or averse?
Constitute or comprise?
Discreet or discrete?
Practise or practice?
We’ll make the right choice. You can count on it.

If you need help with improving and preparing complex copy before publication then this is the service to choose. We will aim to make your publications clear, consistent and correct.

The publications we work on are mostly, but not exclusively, on subjects such as:

animal health
banking and finance
biochemistry
drugs and drug addiction
environmental affairs
European affairs
health technology
health and safety
human rights
law
medicine
microbiology
molecular biology
public health
soil science
general scientific research policy.

Our editors have excellent native English language skills and understand the importance of idiom as well as effective academic writing.

We are familiar with handling confidential material that is embargoed until a planned press or web publication date.

Proofreading

Are you happy for that important report to say ruining the economy rather than running the economy? Did someone inadvertently write about censoring instead of censuring? Clients who use this service are often shocked by what we discover (but also extremely pleased that it isn’t too late to put matters right). Proofreading is highly skilled work – it takes much more than the ability to spell in order to wield a red pen properly.

Choose this service if you need documents, eBooks or web sites checked by professionals before final publication. We will assume that the material has already been copy-edited. If it hasn’t then we recommend that you ask for a combined editing and proofreading service.

Our proofreaders are all fully trained.

We will check that your text makes sense (heath and health or eternal and external will all be correct to spell-checking software, which remains unable to understand context).

We will also check the consistency of contents lists, headings, and table and figure citations as well as examine your material for duplications and omissions.

Layout and design services

Design and typesetting

We have extensive experience of typesetting highly illustrated books, journals and reports. We provide a full page design and layout service, including cover design.

We can typeset large multivolume works comprising several thousand pages as well as short reports. We are comfortable working with your existing templates or type specifications, and equally happy to create our own designs using your brief and brand guidelines.

We use Adobe Creative Cloud for design and typesetting projects. We have created custom scripts to automate parts of the typesetting process, and these can be tailored to individual clients’ needs.

This is complemented by special processes and software for XML and ePub production.

At the end of your project we will produce press-ready or web-optimised PDF files. You can be certain that the press output we supply will have been properly preflighted. We can create web files containing bookmarks, active links, forms and other interactive elements as required. We know how to minimise file size without degrading the appearance of the document.

We are familiar with the technical requirements of many printing companies throughout the UK and Europe. We are happy to liaise with your printers to ensure that the files we send are optimised for their production process. If you don’t have a printer already picked out, we can make recommendations tailored to your needs.

Illustrating

We can draw artwork for you, use an illustrator of your choice or even find and commission a specialist artist, e.g. for maps or anatomical drawings. We can also scan photographs, radiographs and transparencies and edit and enhance scanned images.

We can create charts and infographics from raw data supplied by you. We will make sure that the data are displayed correctly and the story they tell is clear, by choosing appropriate chart types, scales, and colours. We will style charts and infographics to match the overall appearance of the document and ensure that they are in keeping with your brand guidelines.

If you want us to source stock artwork according to a brief, or pick images from your own image library, we can do that too. We will make sure that the images used reflect your brand in a positive way.

We can also work with images and vector art that you or your authors supply. If the quality of the supplied images is poor, we can give advice on what needs to be done to create a better replacement image. And if you genuinely can’t supply anything better, we will do our best to enhance what you have given us.

Writing and rewriting services

Editing involves a great deal more than correcting spelling and grammar. However, some text needs an even higher level of intervention, variously described as substantive editing or rewriting. This is especially true of text written by those whose first language is not English and/or which may be read by non-native English speakers. The aim is to improve the content and structure of the text in any way necessary to get the message across. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

We also offer a copywriting service. Our writing experience is broad, covering a range of subjects and aimed at a variety of different readerships (lay or specialist). We can write clear, accurate and user-friendly copy suitable for publication in print or on the web.

Our team of highly qualified writers will produce blog posts, web pages, articles or longer pieces that say what you want them to say and will revise as necessary until you are happy with the finished text.

For one important pan-European body, we have written blog postings, press releases, web pages and even speeches.

If you want to discuss a potential project, please get in touch.