Quality control of the papers in its journals is a major concern of the International Union of Crystallography. Recent technological developments, not least the emergence of a standard data interchange file format, have facilitated the checking of numerical data in a paper, and its error-free transference to the printed page. Consequently, database holdings derived from IUCr journals will be of greater accuracy. Other publishers of crystallographic data may benefit from these innovations.
Keywords: crystallographic information file (CIF); data checking; publishing; quality control.