An electronic document is any electronic
media content (other than
computer program
A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and oth ...
s or system files) that is intended to be used in either an
electronic form
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic co ...
or as printed output. Originally, any
computer data were considered as something internal — the final data output was always on paper. However, the development of
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
s has made it so that in most cases it is much more convenient to distribute electronic documents than printed ones. The improvements in
electronic visual display
An electronic visual display, informally a screen, is a display device for presentation of images, text, or video transmitted electronically, without producing a permanent record. Electronic visual displays include television sets, computer monito ...
technologies made it possible to view documents on screen instead of printing them (thus saving paper and the space required to store the printed copies).
However, using electronic documents for final presentation instead of paper has created the problem of multiple incompatible
file format
A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free.
Some file format ...
s. Even
plain text computer files are not free from this problem — e.g. under
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
, most programs could not work correctly with
UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
-style text files (see
newline
Newline (frequently called line ending, end of line (EOL), next line (NEL) or line break) is a control character or sequence of control characters in character encoding specifications such as ASCII, EBCDIC, Unicode, etc. This character, or ...
), and for non-English speakers, the different
code page
In computing, a code page is a character encoding and as such it is a specific association of a set of printable characters and control characters with unique numbers. Typically each number represents the binary value in a single byte. (In some c ...
s always have been a source of trouble.
Even more problems are connected with complex file formats of various
word processor
A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...
s,
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ...
s, and
graphics software. To alleviate the problem, many software companies distribute free
file viewer
A file viewer is a Software application that represents the data stored in a computer file in a human-readable form. The file contents are formatted in a meaningful way and then displayed on the screen or printed out. Also, they may be read al ...
s for their proprietary file formats (one example is
Adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...
's
Acrobat Reader). The other solution is the development of standardized non-