The original data sources become an integral part of the creation process, and great care must be exercised to maintain those data sources for future versions of the document. You may reuse document content. If proper care is taken of all the various data sources, you can reuse the information. Reusing the content allows an organization to profit from the publication of the content again and again. Before we get into some more detail, let's take a look at the forest before starting a hike through the trees.
Many technologies created in the last several years impact compound documents.
The concept, however, is simple and elegant. The user should be allowed to read, or write a document. Inside the document are all sorts of media types that the user may want to mess around with as part of the editing process. The world starts getting complicated when vendors, of necessity, address issues concerning the storage and interoperability of these complex compound documents. For example, if a document contains a variety of spreadsheets embedded in the document, it is comforting for the user to know that the spreadsheet will be updatable.