Document management grew out of paper filing and records management. Its main users are the people who write and edit documents, and its main concern is the text and the record, not how a file looks when it is published.
What a document management system does
- Storage and indexing of documents with metadata such as client, project, document type and owner.
- Version control: each save becomes a new version, earlier versions can be restored, and some systems lock a document while one person edits it (check-out and check-in). See version control.
- Co-authoring in the browser or in desktop office software.
- Full-text search across the words in each document, including scanned pages read by OCR.
- Permissions by team, project or client.
- Workflows for review and sign-off, such as a policy approved by legal before publication.
- Retention and records management: rules that keep a contract for a set number of years and then dispose of it. ISO 15489-1:2016 sets out the concepts and principles of records management.
The file formats are mostly standardised: Office Open XML (ISO/IEC 29500) for Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, OpenDocument (ISO/IEC 26300) for LibreOffice files, and PDF (ISO 32000), with PDF/A (ISO 19005) for long-term archiving.
Document management vs digital asset management
| Document management (DMS) | Digital asset management (DAM) | |
|---|---|---|
| Main content | Text documents: contracts, policies, reports, spreadsheets | Rich media: images, video, design files, brand assets, finished collateral |
| Main users | Authors and editors inside the company | Marketing, sales, agencies, partners, press |
| What matters | The text, who changed it, how long it is kept | How it looks, which sizes exist, where it may be used |
| Search | Words in the document | Metadata, what an image shows, text in images, transcripts |
| Previews | Text and page view | Thumbnails, video playback, renditions in many sizes |
| Rights | Confidentiality and retention | Licences, territories, channels, model releases, expiry dates |
| Sharing | Mostly internal, sometimes with clients | Often external: portals, share links, websites |
Many companies already have a DMS in the form of their office suite's file storage. It handles contracts and spreadsheets well and media poorly, which is the argument of SharePoint vs DAM and the SharePoint DAM limitations guide.
Where marketing documents fit
Marketing produces documents too: datasheets, brochures, case studies, price lists, pitch decks. They sit between the two systems:
- While being written, they belong in the DMS or office suite, where several people edit the text and comments are resolved.
- Once approved, they become marketing assets. Sales needs the current PDF, partners need it in their language, and nobody should send last year's version.
A practical rule: drafts in the document system, approved and published versions in the DAM. A B2B example is a product datasheet edited in a word processor by product marketing and legal, then exported to PDF and published to the DAM, where sales and distributors find it by product number and download it in English, French or German.
Common mistakes
- Using the DMS as an image library. Folders of product photos with no previews at scale, no rights fields and no resized copies.
- Using the DAM as a document editor. A DAM stores and distributes documents; it is not where several people edit a contract.
- Two current versions. The datasheet is replaced in the DAM but an old copy stays attached to a page in the intranet. Link to the DAM asset instead of uploading copies.
Document management in Freedam
Freedam stores, finds and distributes finished documents alongside the rest of the brand's assets.
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and LibreOffice files are converted to PDF at upload so they can be previewed in the browser.
- The text of each document is extracted and indexed for search: from the file itself for DOCX, XLSX, PPTX and OpenDocument files, and from the PDF for native PDFs and older .doc, .xls, .ppt and .rtf files. Administrators can set its weight in keyword search.
- Single-page PDFs that were not converted from another format are read by the same AI analysis as images, which picks up text in the page.
- Access rules can give partners the PDF preview of a document while the editable original stays restricted.
- Uploading a new version replaces the file on the same asset and keeps the previous ones in the history.
- Renderings attach approved translations of a PDF to the original asset, so each language is downloaded from the same place in the asset library.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a DMS and a DAM?
A DMS manages text documents while they are written and kept, with versioning, co-authoring and retention. A DAM manages rich media and finished files for reuse and distribution, with previews, renditions, usage rights and external sharing.
Is the file storage in an office suite a document management system?
Usually, yes. Office suite storage provides versioning, permissions, co-authoring and full-text search, which are the core of document management. It can hold images, but it is not built around image metadata, renditions or licence terms.
Do I need both a DMS and a DAM?
Most companies with a marketing team do. The office suite handles documents being written; the DAM handles approved media and published collateral. Approved documents move from one to the other.
Related terms
Search inside a brochure
Search Nordi's demo library for a phrase from a PDF or a slide deck, preview the document in the browser, and choose between the PDF and the editable original when you download it.
You enter Nordi’s workspace as an administrator.