Typesetting errors in older documents

Transcription How-To
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I have been transcribing some early 18th century Spanish inheritance documents and occasionally see a typesetting error: ‘n’ for ‘u’, or ‘r’ for ‘t’. They’re in words that are constantly so I know exactly how they should be spelled.

Should I transcribe these as written or as they should be?

Thanks for any comments. I’m not seeing an answer to this question in the How To’s.

[If you say: Type as it appears and then add a tag, how does that tag apply to the actual word I want to correct, especially if appears correctly through most of the page?]

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I would transcribe it with the typesetting error. I would leave it untagged for the reason you gave. But one of the LOC employees might tell you to tag it. I’ll watch for their reply.

I’ve seen something similar with upside down letters. I transcribe these as the right side up letter, but maybe an employee can also let me know if I should be asking Google to give me the upside down letter to paste in.

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Transcription standards say: “Transcribe original text spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Type what you see.” Even if it’s a misspelling.

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Thanks for your comments. I’ll type what I see. :wink:

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I asked my question privately and received this answer: “Yes, please transcribe an upside-down letter rightside-up… While you probably could find an upside-down e character it wouldn’t work as an “e” within our search and discovery systems.”

So … a thing to keep in mind – what we are transcribing has to be searchable. Maybe that goes without saying, but sometimes I get so caught up in trying to replicate what’s on the page that I forget this rule.

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