No matter how many times you check your white paper, you can always miss something. Any mistakes that happen during the design steps can be especially tough to spot. When you get the final PDF of the white paper, arrange to have two or three team members who’ve never seen it before give it a careful proofing on hard copy.
| Item | What to Watch For |
|---|---|
| Bullets | All formatted the same? All the same size? All the same shape? |
| Colors | All match or harmonize? All from the same corporate palette? All print out clearly in black and white? |
| Contents | All entries match the actual headings? Any missing entries? |
| E-mail addresses | All correct? Did you test to make sure they work? |
| Footers | Every page has a footer? All formatted the same? |
| Footnotes | All formatted the same? All lead to proper references? |
| Graphics | All figure numbers, titles, and captions correct? All formatted
the same? All graphics print clearly in color? In black and white? |
| Headers | Every page has a header? All formatted the same? |
| Headings | All headings formatted correctly? All the proper size? |
| Lists | All numbers in correct order? All items formatted the same? |
| Logos | All used properly, not stretched or squeezed? All colors correct? |
| Margins | All the same on every page? |
| Math | All figures add up? All formulas work out correctly? |
| Page numbers | Every page has a number? In correct order? All formatted the same? |
| Phone numbers | All correct? Did you dial them to make sure they work? |
| Style sheet | All styles applied consistently? |
| Tables | All table numbers and titles correct? All formatted the same? |
| Text | All formatted correctly? Proper fonts? Proper sizes? |
| web links | All correct? Did you test them to make sure they work? |
By this point, all the text has been reviewed and approved many times, but if your proofers spot any text that they find inconsistent or hard to understand, you probably want to make some final fixes to those passages.
