Computer-assisted reviewing (CAR) tools are pieces of software based on text-comparison and analysis algorithm

Algorithm

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...

s. These tools focus on the differences between two documents, taking into account each document's typeface

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....

 through an intelligent analysis.

Detecting differences

The intelligent analysis used by CAR tools detect the differences do not have the same value depending on their type and/or the document field/subject. For example, a difference on a number is not the same if this number is a date, a price, a page number, a figure number, a part of an address, a footnote call, a list item number, a title number, etc.

• a title number or a list item number difference can be of no interest if these numbers will be re-calculated afterward before printing or publishing by a text processing tool,
• a small number difference like "1" to "one" or "1" to "1st" is often of secondary interest, depending on the subject and the field of the document
• while some other number differences can be very damageable to the document.

These tools are interesting in various kind of applications:

• comparison between a document and an updated/modified version of it. The main goal is then to highlight the modifications made by a third person or a text processing software.
• comparison between a document edited two file formats: Word
  Microsoft Word
  Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
  
  , TXT, PDF, HTML
  HTML
  HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
  
  , XML
  XML
  Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
  
  . The main goal is to highlight differences implied by the format modification or the conversion/re-formatter software. Often, simple char encoding conversion troubles can cause disasters.

Computer assisted reviewing for translation

Computer Assisted Reviewing for Translation (CART) tools are CAR tools being able to manage multi-lingual comparisons. This implies to be able to match each part of text from one document to the other, taking into account the specificity of each language: date/number formats, punctuation (for example, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

/English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 quotation mark

Quotation mark

Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...

s), etc. The best CART tools are able to find matches between noun or verbal groups, this implying to find terminological and syntaxical elements using linguistic analyzers.

Application examples

• A book author updating his document (often in Word format) while he is receiving printer's proofs (often in PDF), or translations in another language.
• A web site content manager that should ensure updates and versions consistence of his HTML pages in different languages
• A printer that should ensure the consistency and the quality of his process, possibly using proprietary XML/SGML formats, some automatic treatments, possible manual interventions, done by himself or by a subcontractor.
• An editor through which documents from all actors are transiting
• The MediaWiki
  MediaWiki
  MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
  
  "history" on each page is a CAR tool

External links

• CoquiWeb (still experimental CAR & CART tool).