RedPen, a
Document
Checker
Takahiko Ito
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Background:
programming environment
Software engineers make use of many tools
in the development of software.
Tool: CheckStyle, FindBugs, lint, Valgrind,
CI etc…
➔ Tools contribute to keep the quality.
2

Background: writing
situations
Software engineers write large amount of
natural language documents
Example: Manuals, tutorial, Blog,
Specification
Unfortunately, there is no handy checking
tool for the quality of documents.
➔ Quality of documents is not improved.
3

Motivation
Checking formatting issues can be done
automatically.
Writers can concentrate on the contents of
documents.
➔We have made RedPen, a document
checker.
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What is RedPen?
a validation tool for document written in
natural languages
E.g., English, Japanese, Chinese
Target: technical papers, manuals and so
on.
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Function of RedPen
RedPen detects the problems in input documents.
Problems:
Sentence Length
Inconsistency of terminology
Spell-miss
…
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Example: low quality
text
small letter! Too long sentence!
Some of software works in more than one machines and
such distributed software can handle large amount of data or
works in severe environments because such software make
use of much computer resources. In this paper we call a
server works in a cluster as ‘instance.’
for example, in search engines or distributed databases, the
fractions of indexes are stored in multiple instances.Such
system need a component to merge the query results before
the return the results to the users.
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Need space!

Features of RedPen
Handy configuration
Language independent
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Usage: RedPen
Users pick up the checking items
(validators)
RedPen provides many validators
9

Example of RedPen
configuration
<validator-list>
<validator name=“SentenceLength" />
<validator name="InvalidCharacter" />
<validator name=“SpellCheck" />
<validator name=“SectionLength” />
</validator-list>
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Sentence length
Invalid character
spell check

Available validators
SentenceLength
InvalidExpression
SpaceAfterPeriod
CommaNumber
WordNumber
SuggestExpression
InvalidCharacter
SpaceWithSymbol
KatakanaEndHyphen
KatakanaSpellCheck
SectionLength
ParagraphNumber
ParagraphStartWith
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Command
RedPen provides a simple command.
$ redpen -c config-file input
!
Supported format: Markdown、Textile、
PlainText
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Sample server
Launched by the following command.
$ java -jar redpen.war
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Demo
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Future work
Current RedPen focuses on the simple
functions
In the future, RedPen will support more
sophisticated and experimental functions
proposed in research fields.
Provide plugin system
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Summary
Introduction of RedPen
Validation tool for documents written in natural
languages.
Usage:
Configurations
Handy command and server
Future work
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