Copy refers to written material, in contrast to photographs or other elements of layout, in a large number of contexts, including magazines, advertising, and book publishing. In advertising, web marketing and similar fields, copy refers to the output of copywriters, who are employed to write material which encourages consumers to buy goods or services. In publishing more generally, the term copy refers to the text in books, magazines, and newspapers. In books it means the text as written by the author, which the copy editor then prepares for typesetting and printing. In newspapers and magazines it means the "body copy", the main article or text that writers are responsible for, as opposed to the accompanying material such as headlines, which are written by copy editors or sub-editors.
