Automating document checks and production
Document automation handles repetitive checks and production tasks while leaving scientific interpretation and editorial decisions with the writer. Tools can check consistency, compare documents with their sources, generate tables and cross-references, and enforce document standards.
Purpose and scope
Automating document creation and quality-control review can save time and improve accuracy, leaving more time for scientific description and interpretation. Repetitive tasks such as creating standard text and tables, checking abbreviation lists and hyperlinks, managing references, supporting collaboration and anonymising sensitive information can be automated. Automating error-prone tasks that require no scientific interpretation can leave writers more time to write and improve job satisfaction.
Consistency and editorial checks
Editing includes repetitive, error-prone work that software can help reduce. PerfectIt is a Word add-in that checks consistency and supports house-style rules, including locating undefined abbreviations. It presents suggested changes beside the document, allowing the user to accept or reject them in context.
PerfectIt can be especially useful for long documents, tight deadlines, several authors’ differing styles and complex material. Examples include Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy dossiers, regulatory submissions, study reports, journal articles, grant applications, evaluation reports and package inserts. PerfectIt can save time while leaving the writer in control of the document and responsible for its detail.
Checks
The consistency checks described in 2020 covered hyphenation, numerals versus words, spelling variants, capitalisation of words and headings, and punctuation and capitals in lists. Other checks covered common typographical errors, unclosed brackets and quotation marks, comments left in text and abbreviations. Abbreviation checks found variant forms, checked definition before first use and repeated definitions, and could generate an abbreviation list.
House-style configuration
PerfectIt’s Style Sheet Editor allows house-style preferences to be entered through drop-down questions, starting from a built-in sheet such as US spelling if desired. A sheet can be created in minutes, changed at any time, shared with colleagues and used to enforce hundreds or thousands of rules. Customisation is optional because basic checks and built-in sheets already catch most consistency errors. The “always find” and “never find” settings enforce replacement preferences and reduce false positives respectively.
Limits and human decisions
The tool can give false assurance and false-positive findings; it does not replace grammar or spelling checks and does not find every error. In the 2020 account, formatting checks were limited to italics and a few other issues, and precise American Medical Association rules for abbreviations in tables were only partly covered, although many other table and abbreviation checks were included. A 2022 practitioner account reported that generated abbreviation tables needed checking because they could miss abbreviations in square brackets and mistake authors’ initials for abbreviations.
Regulatory document production
In 2020, Med-Brighter was a Word add-in for regulatory writers with checks for abbreviations, hyperlinks, bookmarks, tables, figures and listings. It created and maintained abbreviation lists, hyperlinks, section references, headings, bookmarks, cross-references and table captions, and generated formatted end-of-text and in-text tables from tables, figures and listings files. Its maker claimed a reduction of up to 70% in time spent on abbreviations.
In 2020, DocQC offered automated quality-control checks within documents and against source material, in real time or scheduled batches. Sources and documents included datasets, tables, figures and listings, patient safety narratives, clinical study reports, risk-management plans and publications. Reports identified failed checks and supplied metrics for tracking document quality and processing.
In 2020, DocXtools enforced customisable content, style and formatting standards in regulatory documents. It automated quality-control review, checked approved symbols, inspected documents before PDF generation and managed abbreviations centrally. It also identified and fixed deviations from best practices and phrases to avoid, and automated tables of contents, appendices, cross-references, figures and tables.