I ran The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt on a 65,000-word test document – a copy of a thriller written in British English. The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt is a brand-new product that comes free with PerfectIt 5, and I’ve been privileged to play with it. But what if CMOS could be integrated into PerfectIt? Afterall, PerfectIt has lots of built-in style sheets – why not CMOS too? Until recently, these two editing staples were in my editing studio but sitting at different digital tables. What is The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt? The rest I tweak to fit my authors’ needs. And given that novel editing requires a flexible approach to grammar, spelling and punctuation – one that serves rhythm and voice first and foremost – many editors choose to customize its guidance, ignore some of it, or blend it with another style guide’s preferences.ĬMOS’s strength lies in how comprehensive it is, and the fact that the online version is easy to search.Įven though fifty per cent of my clients write in British English, CMOS is still my go-to style guide because lots of its guidance can be universally applied. For many editors, even those beyond US shores, it too is a must-have because of its mindful, sensible advice.ĬMOS isn’t a rule book. What is The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)?ĬMOS is a 115-year-old style guide published by The University of Chicago Press. In other words, PerfectIt does the heavy-lifting but lets me retain complete control of the changes being made. Not because the human brain isn’t able to handle the checks it carries out but because software can do it faster.Īnd that means I can spend more of my time (which is what my clients are paying for) helping authors craft a compelling story rather than hunting down important but small details. I’ve been using PerfectIt since its first iteration and, for me, it’s a must-have. Adherence to style preferences: eg how numbers are rendered, punctuation of lists, capitalization of titles, ize/ise suffixes.Consistency: eg spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, acronym definitions.It helps editors and authors check a Word document for:

PerfectIt is software developed by Intelligent Editing.

Perfectit 3 windows 10