The question "What is a Document" is a complex one. In CEMDC terms it can mean one of several things, viz:
- A General Document - a Communication of some sort like an Email, or Letter or Fax.
- A Technical Document - viz a document which has multiple editions, referred to as Revisions.
- A Transmittal Document - viz a document which covers the transmission of one or more revisions of one or more Technical Documents.
- If a document is construed as being a "set of coherent information", then it can also include such things as:
- the contemporaneous note of say a telephone conversation,
- an entry made in a diary,
- the result of an inspection,
- an entry in a time sheet describing the work executed,
- the minutes of a meeting.
The form in which a document exists will mostly be one of two things:
- Paper [or NOT electronic]
- Electronic [in a multitude of varieties], some editable [or revisable], some not.
What the "Original" of a document is, is also open to discussion. Particularly when it can readily be changed from one form into another. This is not an exhaustive list of methodologies .... there may be videos, sound recordings, or even databases such as a cable schedule.
- Dealing with paper first, that is documents which were created by hand on paper e.g. an inspection form. Mostly these can be replicated as follows:
- Copied - uisng a photo copier or a scanner / printer
- Simply rewritten - as in "making a fair copy"
- Scanned and saved as an electronic document as follows:
- An image file
- OCR'd as a text file
- A combined text and image file such as a pdf.
- Next is electronic documents which are created uisng an application - including for example:
- A CAD document,
- A Word Processor document
- A document held in in a database (in a CEMDC package such as TDOC) which can be replicated as follows:
- Printed on paper
- Printed for example to PDF
- Turned into an email where it is in the body of the email
- Turned into an email which despatches as an attachment the pdf [see above],
The Original is either what you finally create and release or despatch, or what you first receive depending on whether it is "Your" document, or "Someone Else's."
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