Dokument

Dokument is a term used in several languages including German, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Polish to refer to a persistent record that conveys information. In a broad sense, a document is any artifact that records facts, instructions, or narratives and is created or received in the course of activity. Documents can be physical or digital.

Documents serve communication, legal, administrative, or archival purposes. Common types include contracts, reports, forms, certificates, manuals, specifications, academic papers, and correspondence. They may be meant for current use or long-term preservation, and they often contain metadata such as author, date, and version to support retrieval, authenticity, and provenance.

Digital documents can take many formats, such as PDF, word processor formats (DOCX, ODT), HTML, XML, and plain text. Interoperability is enhanced by open standards and well-defined metadata. Archival and accessibility considerations lead to formats designed for long-term readability (e.g., PDF/A, XML-based representations) and practices like version control, indexing, and searchability. Security concerns include integrity, authenticity, access control, and encryption.

The concept has evolved from clay tablets and parchment to print and electronic records. Modern document management systems organize, store, retrieve, and govern documents across organizations, enabling collaboration, compliance, and knowledge retention. In many languages, the term "Dokument" functionally overlaps with "document" and is used for both physical papers and digital records.