Introduction

This paper describes a project within ICL's Office Business Centre that is designing a new document filing and retrieval system. The system is designed to integrate with ICL's networked office product line and to make maximum use of international standards for Open Systems Interconnection. The project is known internally as Textmaster, and an initial subset of the total system is being delivered to selected customers during 1986 under the name ICLFILE.

The system is designed to allow end-users to find the documents they are interested in by means of simple enquiries. They may then view these documents either directly on the screen, or by requesting a printed copy, or by having the document mailed to them electronically. Throughout this process both the typographical layout and the editability of the document are fully preserved. Thus if the user requests a printed copy this can be produced in high quality on a laser printer if required, while if he wishes to edit the document all the necessary layout directives will be preserved. If the document is viewed on the screen it can be presented in a format as close to the printed layout as the screen characteristics will allow: the popular ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ feature of modern word processors.