For the R.E.M. album, see Document (album). For the similarly-named Surrealist journal, see Documents (journal).
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A document (noun from latin documentum [second declension, gen documentī]: lesson, instruction, warning), is a bounded physical or digital representation of a body of information designed with the capacity (and usually intent) to communicate. A document may manifest symbolic, diagrammatic or sensory-representational information. To document (verb) is to produce a document artifact by collecting and representing information. In prototypical usage, a document is understood as a paper artifact, containing information in the form of ink marks. Increasingly documents are also understood as digital artifacts.

Colloquial usage is revealed by the connotations and denotations that appear in a Web search for document. From these usages, one can infer the following typical connotations:

Writing that provides information person's thinking by means of symbolic marks.
A written account of ownership or obligation.
To record in detail; "The parents documented every step of their child's development".
A digital file in a particular format.
To support or supply with references; "Can you document your claims?".
An artifact that meets a legal notion of document for purposes of discovery in litigation.
Document is the practical construct for describing matter in different forms which retain information for a reasonable period of time wherein it can be perceived by a sentient observing entity.

The variety usage reveals that the notion of document has rich social and cultural aspects besides the physical, functional and operational aspects.

Document is just a practical concept which presently would be defined narrowly based on human understanding and perception of the external world.

Document in its wider connotation could include matter in all its forms, even a universe could be perceived as a document on a wider scale.

The practical