Document Assembly Overview

This section of the website deals with introductory information regarding document assembly.  Starting with what document assembly is, moving to some discussion as to what a document is (which may not be the way you think...) and how it interacts with related documents and a glossary of commonly used terms.  But for now, the overview.

Document Assembly Generally

Document assembly is an industry that deals with increasing the productivity (and profit margin) of companies by making documents faster and easier to create, with much higher levels of consistency and accuracy. The documents can be simple letters, memos and forms, PDF type form fill documents or highly complex documents (such as legal documents) with hundreds of instances of optional content, multiple levels deep. As with any programming, the better the sytem designed and programmed for you, the less effort you need to spend to create your documents. The benefits of document assembly are not limited to any specific industry however, the industry that appears to benefit most is the legal industry and legal-related entites.

If you produce many documents on a day to day basis that are not "accounting driven", document assembly is most likely a profit avenue for your company or firm.  Common examples I have come across (other than legal documentation) are quote systems, reporting/review systems and advice systems.  If you find yourself making the same or similar decisions every time you draft a document, then document assembly could be profitable.

To some, document assembly (or document automation) means Microsoft Word mail merges, to others it means a host of WordPerfect or VBA macros and to others it conjures mental images of PDF documents with form fill fields.  It may be a simple as producing mail outs from a database or spreadsheet, or it may be a linked into your accounting/reporting packages to produce documents quickly from existing data. Document assembly is all and none of these things. Can document assembly be as simple as mail merges in word? Absolutely. Is document assembly able to help fill out fixed PDF forms? Yes. Is document assembly limited to these applications? Absolutely not.

Document assembly is simply a process to create "better" documents more efficiently and with less effort while increasing quality control, consistency and accuracy of content. Both Microsoft Word and WordPerfect have inbuilt scripting languages which can be learned and used to create document assembly systems. Several companies have products that are "document assembly platforms" which contain very specific programming languages designed to create better document assembly systems than standard word processor offerings. In short, document assembly can be a variety of things, created by various different programs. The only real limitations when creating a document assembly system are the program you chose to write it in, the skill and experience of the programmer and the amount of resources you are willing to dedicate.