Data for digital process and legal proof
Data is the core of any document. In order for digital data to be acceptable, it must also satisfy all the legal and process requirements of paper.
Two layers of the same data
In order for a computer system to be able to process data, it must be formatted in a way that it understands. Yet our most important documents are made to be read by humans, since humans are the final decision makers.
With trace:original, we solve this by taking the source data and creating two layers, one human readable and one machine readable.
Human readable data – PDF
The human readable layer is a PDF, spiced up with our special sauce, but still readable with Adobe Acrobat Reader. As PDF is the de-facto open standard for shareable documents, this allows trace:original documents to be sent and received by anyone without any special software.
trace:original documents can be formatted and have any layout, just like any other PDF document, and our template system makes it easy and efficient to get your own layouts to display your data in the way you want.
Machine readable data
The machine readable layer is created at the same time as the human readable layer – from the same source, and with the exact same content. The only difference is that the machine readable data is formatted for machine readability, as a YAML or XML file. This file is attached to the PDF and locked together with the PDF at the time of creation.
When signing the document both the human readable and machine readable data is signed together, ensuring that the data can be acted upon both by humans and systems.
The YAML or XML data file can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader by selecting the attachments tab.