A document management system (DMS) is a computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents in various forms, including:

  • marked-up text files for editing and publishing to printing or electronic display devices, using either proprietary or standard markup languages
  • “final form” print-oriented page languages such as PostScript or PDF
  • rasterized images that have been scanned for archival or viewing

Basic features included check-in / check-out library services for authors, and version tracking.

Since the emergence of the Web and multichannel content management systems (CMS) in the 1990s and since, document management systems have largely become a subset of the broader content management category.