Documentent

Documentent is a term used in information science to describe a hybrid digital artifact that blends static content with embedded metadata and executable components. A documentent stores text, data, and rules that software can render, validate, or transform without altering the original authoring.

The term combines “document” with the suffix “-ent” to indicate an entity. It arose in theoretical discussions of future document formats and automated workflows and is not a widely adopted standard. Proposals vary in emphasis on runtime behavior, provenance, and access control.

A typical documentent contains textual content, metadata such as authorship and provenance, modular components that render figures or perform checks, an embedded execution environment or sandbox, and a version history. It is intended to be portable across compatible document engines.

Use cases include dynamic reports that update from data feeds, documents with automatic compliance checks, interactive scientific papers, and policy documents that enforce workflow rules during rendering.

Challenges include security risks from embedded code, interoperability across tools, complexity of versioning, and accessibility concerns. Standards would be needed to ensure reliable migration between systems.

See also: live document, executable document, structured document.