Structured Document Generation—A Cornerstone of Document Management

Abstract

Many pharmaceutical companies are planning to introduce electronic document management systems, but not all are trying to standardize the internal structure and content of the documents themselves. This paper describes the attempts at Novartis to standardize documents through the use of office software tools and international document standards. The advantages of the structured approach to document generation are explored in relation to the document management software (Documentum, XDA) adopted at Novartis Pharma and other possible approaches such as HTML.