Document Processing

• Author: K. Hemby-Grubb
• Pages: 210-212

Page 210

A document is any written, printed, or electronically prepared business communication that conveys information. In the information age, documents are essential products that are becoming larger and more complex. Document processing involves the equipment, software, and procedures for creating, formatting, editing, researching, retrieving, storing, and mailing documents.

HISTORY OF DOCUMENT PREPARATION

The advent of a writing system coincided with the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to agrarian encampments where it became necessary to count one's property—whether it was parcels of land, animals, or measures of grain—or to transfer that property to another individual or another settlement. Letters were being handwritten as early as 2686 B.C.E. Prior to the inventions of the typewriter and the computer, all documents were handwritten, whether they were letters, bills of lading, property deeds, or reports.

The invention of the typewriter changed the way people communicated—moving from handwritten documents to typed ones. The typewriter was invented in 1714 by Henry Mill. Christopher Latham Sholes, a Milwaukee inventor, is the person most often associated with the invention of the typewriter in the United States. In 1868 Sholes produced the first practical typewriter to be patented.

At that time, however, correspondence was deeply rooted in etiquette and penmanship. Individuals were of the mindset that letter writing was the most private, complete, and encompassing form of communication between people. Individuals who dared to type letters risked rejection. Typewritten letters were viewed as insulting, implying that the recipient could not read. Even as late as 1922, the etiquette authority Emily Post was still describing letter writing as an art—even as she saw that art shrinking until "the letter threatens to become a telegram, a telephone message, a post-card" (Post).

Nonetheless, sales of the typewriter became lucrative, and with its acceptance, individuals found the process of preparing documents a far simpler one. The typewriter gave operators a faster means of writing than a person could do by hand.

In 1961 IBM introduced the first electric typewriter, the Selectric. Instead of the standard movable carriage and individual type strikers, this typewriter had a revolving type ball. The use of...