Open and Closed 

Toward the end of a closing day, when our editors and proofreaders have signed off on every file and the magazine is just about ready for print, our graphic designers close each page for print and save all those individual pages in a designated folder. That’s when we start the last stage of the production process: checking the closed files.

Our production team checks that the files have been set up according to the printers’ regulations, that no text has gotten lost or replaced by ads, that all the ads were placed properly, that the files match their grids, that all photo credits and bylines are in place.

Our editorial team goes through the closed files too, quickly skimming titles, bylines, teasers, captions. Sometimes we’ll catch a missing quotation mark or a spelling mistake. One editor has a sharp eye and will notice an occasional block of text in the wrong shade of black (yes, there are different types of blacks). Or a column that hasn’t been justified properly, or a wrong font.

There are always mistakes we don’t catch. Humans are imperfect by design, Hashem is in charge, and even the sharpest eyes sometimes miss things. (We just hope that if mistakes do go to print, they’re spelling and grammar errors, not the types of errors that hurt people or damage reputations.)