XBRL: The Dawn of a New EDGAR

Dated: February 2008

Firm: Bowne & Co., Inc.

This white paper provides an overview and analysis of XBRL®, the business reporting technology that signals the transformation of a significant portion of the corporate disclosure process in the ever-changing world of U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) compliance filing. XBRL, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is a globally-accepted reporting standard changing the way companies and regulators across the world are disclosing and collecting financial data. In its most complete implementation, XBRL harnesses the power of computers in ways that release both the numeric and textual disclosure beyond the boundaries of the printed page.

Although virtually all SEC disclosures are submitted electronically via the EDGAR system, the filings themselves are mostly organized and constructed so they can be printed. The current EDGAR system uses ASCII and HTML to form the backbone of this print-based infrastructure. XBRL provides a way to shift focus from paper to data, making printing and visual appeal secondary to a stream of information that enables computer-assisted searching, extraction, aggregation, comparison, computation and more.

Download a complimentary electronic copy of the English version.
Download a complimentary electronic copy of the Simplified Chinese version.

See additional securities resources available for download from Bowne.

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