Treat conversion as a first draft of the character layer, not as a signed-off publication. OpenCC is strong on ordinary prose and weak on the exact strings people argue about later: names, laws, buttons, and anything a lawyer will read aloud.
Proofreading a converted file is not the same as proofreading a translation. You are not asking whether the author should have used a different metaphor. You are asking whether the standard is consistent, whether mergers went the right way, and whether the file still looks like a document.
Before you read a word
Confirm the job you think you ran is the job you ran.
- Confirm the OpenCC type matches the audience. Taiwan and Hong Kong are not interchangeable; see Taiwan vs Hong Kong Traditional Chinese.
- Confirm you started from the original file, not from a previous conversion.
- Open the download on a machine with a proper CJK font. Boxes are a display problem until proven otherwise.
- Keep the source and the output side by side. Proofreading from memory is how skipped headings survive.
If the source was already unreadable, proofreading the output is theatre. Repair garbled Chinese first.
A short checklist
- Search for known one-to-many characters in names and short labels: 后, 发, 面, 干, 复, 台 and any others your house style cares about. The one-to-many guide explains why they matter.
- Read every heading, slide title and figure caption. Titles are short, so the converter has little context.
- Read the first paragraph of each section. If the dictionary failed, it often fails in a repeating way.
- Check UI strings, buttons, menu items and error messages if those exist. A single wrong character on a button is more public than a wrong character in footnote 14.
- Check legal footnotes, warranty lines and privacy sentences. Even when the meaning is unchanged, the wrong regional term looks careless.
- Click through headers, footers, comments, speaker notes and sheet names. Hidden text is easy to forget.
- Look at wrapping. Traditional text can overflow a cell or a slide that fitted Simplified text.
- Search for leftover source-standard characters if the document should be entirely one standard. A single Simplified 国 in a Traditional file is a leftover, not a style choice.
People vs machines
A native reader of the target standard will catch vocabulary the dictionary missed. They will also tell you when a phrase type made the file sound oddly local, or not local enough.
Match the amount of review to the risk:
- Chat, notes, a personal email: a one-pass skim of names.
- A blog post or internal memo: the checklist above, ten to twenty minutes for a short file.
- A user interface: a string-by-string pass, plus a screenshot pass in the real layout.
- A contract, medical form, or printed book: a native editor, and more time than the conversion itself took.
If nobody on your team reads the target standard, you can still do the mechanical searches. You cannot honestly sign off on tone. Say so to the client.
How to mark problems
Do not convert the file a second time to "fix" one word. Second conversions drift. Change the wrong word by hand, or maintain a small exception list and paste protected strings back from the original.
When you find a systematic error — the same merger wrong in every heading — decide whether a different OpenCC type would have been better, then run one new conversion from the original. Do not stack conversions.
For office files, use the application's own review tools if you need to show a colleague what changed. This site does not keep your download as an archive. Converted files are available briefly, then deleted. See document privacy.
Tools on this site
Convert with the text or document tool, download promptly, then review offline. Temporary files are not a backup.
If you are still choosing a standard, compare a paragraph under two targets in the text converter before you convert a 200-page book. Proofreading is cheaper when the sample already told you the target was wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Can I trust the converter on news prose? On ordinary news prose it is usually strong. Still read headlines and proper nouns.
Should I proofread on my phone? Use it as a second look for wrapping and font fallback. Do the name search on a desktop where find-in-document is easier.
What if I only converted a selection inside Word? Then proofread the unconverted parts too. Mixed standards in one file look like unfinished work.
How do I proofread a spreadsheet? Filter or scan the columns that hold Chinese labels. Do not "read" numeric columns looking for characters that were never there. Check sheet tabs and comments.
Is there an automated proofreading tool on this site? No. The guides tell you what to look for. The converters change characters. A person still accepts the file.