The Text Verification Tool (TVT) is a patented computer-based software program for proofreading developed by the Schlafender Hase GmbH, headquartered in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It was originally designed to meet the needs of the global pharmaceutical industry for consistency and accuracy in product information and documentation. While most effectively used in highly regulated environments, it can be used any proofreading situation where a finalized (printed) text should be identical with the original text, regardless of file size.

Since launch in 2003, TVT has made numerous updates and currently supports all major languages of the world, whether left to right or right to left, also including Braille, and is capable of comparing multiple files in different file types simultaneously. File types supported include DOC

DOC (computing)

In computing, DOC or doc is a filename extension for word processing documents; most commonly for Microsoft Word. Historically, the extension was used for documentation in plain-text format, particularly of programs or computer hardware, on a wide range of operating systems...

, DOCx, RTF

Rich Text Format

The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....

, TXT

Text file

A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...

, PDF

Portable Document Format

Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....

, xHTML

XHTML

XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....

, 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....

 (SPL

Structured Product Labeling

Structured Product Labeling defines the content of human prescription drug labeling in an XML format This format is defined within the SPL schema and is displayed in a web browser using the SPL stylesheet...

 files required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Food and Drug Administration

The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...

 in the USA and PIM

Product Information Management

Product information management or PIM refers to processes and technologies focused on centrally managing information about products, with a focus on the data required to market and sell the products through one or more distribution channels...

 files used by the European Medicines Agency

European Medicines Agency

The European Medicines Agency is a European agency for the evaluation of medicinal products. From 1995 to 2004, the European Medicines Agency was known as European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products.Roughly parallel to the U.S...

 (EMA).

How it works

TVT does not compare the words seen on the monitor but rather the unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

s that generate the words seen. It compares, for example, the original manuscript with the artwork to be printed, or any two or more documents, and indicates all deviations between the compared documents. Deviations are clearly marked and include, among others, deviations in spelling, font, formatting, style, type size, order of words and paragraphs and missing text.
The TVT presupposes that the original document has been checked for spelling and grammar and does not include a spell-check function. It offers an individually customizable key word function that allows users to verify key words that may have been overlooked during the creation of the original document.
TVT uses the Adobe

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

 PDF library for processing PDF documents. Deviation

Deviation

Deviation may refer to:* Deviation , the difference between the value of an observation and the mean of the population in mathematics and statistics** Standard deviation, which is based on the square of the difference...

s and corrections can be saved as a PDF. A detailed report documents all comments and changes during the proofreading process.

Who uses it

TVT can be used effectively in any proofreading context. The accuracy of the TVT has made it particularly useful in the highly regulated global pharmaceutical context. In this context it has demonstrably saved time, increased accuracy and prevented avoidable problems that could result in health problems for patients and costly litigation for producers. In the pharmaceutical context TVT is widely considered to be the industry standard. Based on the experience of the pharmaceutical context, customers working in similarly regulated environments (i.e. legal, financial reporting, chemical, health and nutrition, consumer products) have also employed TVT.