---
title: "Proofreading marks and what they mean"
description: "The marks a proofreader puts on a paper proof, what each one asks you to do, and the digital equivalent when the corrections arrive as a PDF instead."
source: https://usegalley.com/resources/proofreading-marks
---
[Home](https://usegalley.com/) [Resources](https://usegalley.com/resources) Proofreading marks

# Proofreading marks

A proofread comes back covered in symbols that were designed to be unambiguous to a typesetter and are opaque to everybody else. Here is what each one is asking you to do.

### Taking things out and putting them in

| Mark | Name | What it asks for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| δ or a looped d | Delete, or dele | Take out the struck-through text. |
| ⌒ | Close up | Remove the space. book shelf becomes bookshelf. |
| δ⌒ | Delete and close up | Remove a letter and pull the rest together. |
| # | Insert space | There is no space here and there should be. |
| ∧ caret | Insert | Add what is written in the margin at this point. |
|... under the words | Stet | Ignore the correction. The original stands. |

### Moving things

| Mark | Name | What it asks for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ⁀ around two elements | Transpose | Swap them. Used on letters, words or whole lines. |
| ⊐ | Move left | Reduce the indent, or align to the left. |
| ⊏ | Move right | Indent further. |
| ][ | Centre | Centre the line between the margins. |
| ¶ | New paragraph | Break here. |
| run on | Run on | The opposite. Join this paragraph to the one before it. |

### Changing how it is set

| Mark | Name | What it asks for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Single underline | Set in italic | Italicise. |
| Wavy underline | Set in bold | Embolden. Rare in fiction outside headings. |
| Circle round the underline | Set in roman | Take the italics off. |
| Three lines under a letter | Capitalise | Make it upper case. |
| Slash through a capital | Lower case, or l.c. | Make it lower case. |
| Two lines under a word | Small capitals | Set in small caps. |
| wf | Wrong font | This character came from the wrong typeface. Usually a stray glyph. |
| sp | Spell out | Write the numeral or abbreviation in full. |

### Punctuation, in the margin

| Comma | A caret in the text, a comma in the margin. |
| --- | --- |
| Full stop | A caret in the text, a circled full stop in the margin, so it is not lost. |
| Apostrophe or quote | Written above the line in the margin, the way it will sit on the page. |
| Hyphen | Two short strokes, so it is not mistaken for a dash. |
| En or em dash | Marked by name, because the three marks are indistinguishable by hand. |

### Queries and layout faults

|? circled | A query to the author. Answer it, do not delete it. |
| --- | --- |
| au: | Author query. The proofreader is asking, not instructing. |
| eq # | Equalise the spacing across this line. |
| ld | Loose line. The word spaces have opened up too far. |
| Two horizontal strokes | Align. These items should line up. |

## When the proof arrives as a PDF instead

Most of these become a comment box. Two habits
make the digital version work as well as the paper one. Answer every query
rather than silently accepting it, because a query is usually the
proofreader saying they cannot tell what you meant. And do not rewrite at
proof stage: every change reflows the page, and a reflow can push a new widow
onto a page nobody is going to look at again.

Galley exports a proofreading PDF with wide margins and numbered lines, which
is the version to send to someone marking it up by hand, and takes comments
inline for the version that comes back. See
[preview and export](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export) and
[revision](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision).

**For reference, not instruction.** Publishers, agencies and
competitions each keep their own house style, and their guidelines win over
anything on this page.
Written in August 2026. Whichever you pick, apply it to the whole book.

## Questions

What do proofreading marks mean? Each one is an instruction to whoever is setting the type. A mark in the margin says what to do, and a matching mark in the text says where to do it. The margin mark is the one that carries the meaning, because a mark buried in a line of text is easy to miss.

What does stet mean? Latin for let it stand. It cancels a correction: the change was suggested, you disagree, and the original stays. It is written in the margin with a row of dots under the words being kept.

Are proofreading marks still used? On paper proofs, yes, and typesetters still read them. Most fiction corrections now arrive as PDF comments or tracked changes in Word instead, which is faster and unambiguous. Learn the marks anyway, because the vocabulary survives even where the symbols do not.

What is the difference between copyediting and proofreading? A copyedit happens to the manuscript and changes wording, consistency and grammar. A proofread happens to the typeset pages and catches what typesetting introduced: bad breaks, widows, a dropped line, a wrong running head. If you are still rewriting sentences at the proof stage, something went wrong earlier.

## Next

[Anatomy of a book pageThe names these marks point at.](https://usegalley.com/resources/anatomy-of-a-book-page) [Standard manuscript formatWhat gets marked up in the first place.](https://usegalley.com/resources/standard-manuscript-format) [UK vs US styleHalf of what a copyedit is arguing about.](https://usegalley.com/resources/uk-vs-us-style)

More at [the resources index](https://usegalley.com/resources).

Knowing the rule is one thing. Galley applies it across the whole book.

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