Eric Putnam

Open source
Documentation
tooling

Software for the documents
that have to be right.

I build open-source tools for the unglamorous half of technical writing: reviewing documents, approving them, and holding them to a published standard.

§ 01
Index

Projects

Six public repositories. Each has a page here describing what it does, who it is for, and how to run it — then links to the source.

  1. DocReview360 Self-hosted document review, approval, and audit workflow software for technical and regulated documents. Routes a document from draft through review, approval, and publication with a hash-chained audit trail. Python MIT PyPI Alpha Read →
  2. FedStyleValidator Checks Word documents against federal writing, formatting, accessibility, and terminology rules. Ships rule packs for federal, FAA, DOT OGC, plain language, and accessibility checks. Python PyPI Live demo Read →
  3. SimpleDocReview A local-first review and approval tool for DOCX, Markdown, and text files. No database server, no cloud account, no third-party Python packages — it runs on your machine and keeps documents there. Python Zero dependencies Local-first Live demo Read →
  4. DocEditorPlayground Six open-source rich-text editors — TipTap, Toast UI, Editor.js, Slate, Lexical, CKEditor 5 — behind one consistent workspace shell, so you can evaluate them against the same test flow. TypeScript Next.js GPL-3.0 Live demo Read →
  5. TopStateHeatmap Ranks the 50 U.S. states on habitability, cost of living, living standard, income, education, and healthcare, built from Census, BEA, CDC, FEMA, NOAA, and NCES public data. Python Public data Dashboard Read →
  6. SellingPriceEstimator Works out what a used item should sell for, using category-specific depreciation models, condition, optional market comparisons, and how fast you need it gone. Python MIT CLI + web Read →

§ 02
Through-line

What connects them

  • Review is a workflow, not a comment box

    Documents in regulated environments move through defined states with named approvers and a record of who decided what. Three of these projects model that path directly.

  • Standards should be machine-checkable

    A style guide that only lives in a PDF gets ignored. Encoded as rule packs with severities and machine-readable output, it can run in CI.

  • Local-first by default

    Draft documents are often sensitive. Every tool here runs on your own machine or your own infrastructure, with no required cloud service.

  • Pick the right weight

    SimpleDocReview is deliberately small; DocReview360 is deliberately not. Both exist so the choice is explicit rather than a compromise.

§ 03
About

About

I am a technical writer. Most of my work sits where documentation meets compliance — the kind of writing that has a review cycle, an approval signature, and a style guide someone will hold you to.

The tools on this site came out of that work. They exist because the commercial options tend to solve one half of the problem: document management systems route and approve but do not check quality, and proofing tools check quality but do not route or approve. All of it is open source and runs on infrastructure you control.

Source for everything lives on GitHub. Issues and pull requests are welcome on any of the repositories.

Independent projects. None of the software listed here is an official product of, affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Government, the FAA, or any agency.