Ininformation handling, the U.S.Federal Standard 1037C (Glossary of Telecommunication Terms) defines ahard copy as a permanent reproduction, or copy, in the form of a physical object, of any media suitable for direct use by a person (in particularpaper), of displayed or transmitteddata. Examples of hard copies includeteleprinter pages, continuous printed tapes, computer printouts, and radio photo prints. On the other hand, physical objects such asmagnetic tapes,floppy disks, or non-printedpunched paper tapes are not defined as hard copies by 1037C.[1]
A file that can be viewed on a screen without being printed is sometimes called asoft copy.[2][3] The U.S. Federal Standard 1037C defines "soft copy" as "a nonpermanent display image, for example, acathode ray tube display."[4]
The term "hard copy" predates the digital computer. In the book and newspaper printing process, "hard copy" refers to a manuscript or typewritten document that has been edited and proofread and is ready fortypesetting or being read on-air in a radio or television broadcast. The old meaning of hard copy was mostly discarded after theinformation revolution.[5]
One often-overlooked use for printers is in the field ofIT security. Copies of various system and server activity logs are typically stored on the localfilesystem, where a remote attacker – having achieved their primary goals – can then alter or delete the contents of the logs in an attempt to "cover their tracks" or otherwise thwart the efforts of system administrators and security experts. However, if the log entries are simultaneously given to a printer, line-by-line, a local hard-copy record of system activity is created – which cannot be remotely altered or otherwise manipulated.Dot matrix printers are ideal for this task, as they can sequentially print each log entry, one at a time, as they are added to the log. The usual dot-matrix printer support for continuous stationery also prevents incriminating pages from being surreptitiously removed or altered without evidence of tampering.
The hacker'sJargon File defines adead-tree version to be a paper version of an online document, where the phrase "dead trees" refers topaper.
A saying from theJargon File is that"You can'tgrep dead trees", which comes from theUnix commandgrep, which searches the contents of text files. This means that there is an advantage to keeping documents in digital form, rather than on paper, so that they can be more easily searched for specific contents. A similar entry in theJargon File is "tree-killer", which may refer to either a printer or a person who wastes paper.
Dead-tree edition refers to a printed paper version of a written work, as opposed to digital alternatives such as aweb page.[6]
This article incorporatespublic domain material fromFederal Standard 1037C.General Services Administration. Archived fromthe original on 22 January 2022. (in support ofMIL-STD-188).