I have never. Seen this specific typesetting mistake before. I've seen editing mistakes I've seen writing mistakes I've seen typos aplenty I have never seen someone accidentally paste the file version details into the text while typesetting.
that's the first page of the book as well like. I'm assuming this got missed because it obviously happened after the copy was finalised. that's an InDesign file (and not the first InDesign file of the project (clock the 'V2')) so idk much about the publishing process but this is presumably final final steps before committing to print.
but like. idk. this is delightful to me. this is such a specific error. wow.
Also the word "leaflet" has a space in the middle of it in the paragraph above.
Somebody fucked uuuuuuup
This looks like somebody converted an earlier print pdf into an editable file (the clue is in the version details oddly inserted into the text; print PDFs have this outside the margin for identification and is trimmed off after printing). My best guess is somebody LOST the original editable indesign file and all they had was the print PDF and they had to reformat the book for a new printing - probably the paperback edition - so some poor person had to take that pdf and convert it into editable text which means the file information that sits outside the margin is converted as well. That person has then had to check the whole file through for weird formatting like line breaks and extra spaces, page numbers in odd places and this string of file version information which would occur on p much every page.
And that poor person missed that line on the first page in the new file.
@greaseonmymouth if you get the chance inquiring minds would love to know more about why mistakes tend to be missed on the first page. I would've thought that's the page that gets checked most often!
That is ironically exactly the reason why it gets missed!
The more often you look at something, the more used to seeing it you get and your eyes simply skip over stuff even if you don’t intend for that to happen. It’s subconscious. You can’t control it. This is one of the reasons it’s recommended to edit or proofread in a different font and size - the text physically changes which means your eyes aren’t just scanning the same old for the nth time but are forced to process it anew.
(This is the explanation for why fanfic writers catch typos more often after they hit post on ao3. The text literally looks different on ao3 than it did in their text editor so their eyes are now seeing things they missed.)
When it comes to cover proofs it’s SO common to have typos or word repeats because the covers get looked at SO much that everyone just goes “yep looks fine” because this is the 7th cover meeting or whatever and the persons who worked on it obviously have seen it 5 million times in the past two months. For proofing covers it’s recommended to work backwards and use physical barriers, like a piece of paper covering the cover printout you’re looking at and then you look at the last line on the back of the cover and start backwards. You catch so many more errors that way. That includes misspelled titles, word repeats, punctuation errors, whatnot.
So I guarantee that the person who did this pdf to editable text conversion and reformatting has been staring at that document for several hours for several days and simply missed this due to simple repetition fatigue. What should have happened is another person should’ve had a fresh set of eyes on the file to check for errors and I can promise you that there was simply no time for another overworked and underpaid publishing employee to check this over before it went to print. I should hope somebody noticed after printing and that this was fixed in reprints (if the book gets a reprint, it’s not a given).
