Document
A document or printed report: data on paper or another human-readable medium. The symbol is a rectangle whose bottom edge is a wave.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The document symbol is a specialised form of Input/output (data) that names the medium. ISO 5807:1985 calls it human-readable data, giving printed output, OCR and MICR documents, microfilm, tally rolls and data entry forms as examples. IBM’s manual says paper documents and reports of all varieties, including source documents and ledgers.
Several overlapping document symbols mean several documents or copies. The 1970 American standard allows the same symbol drawn in an overlapping stack for multiple copies or types of printed report, the first one in front.
Also searched as: document symbol, document symbol flowchart, flowchart document.
Look-alikes
The punched tape symbol of the older standards has a wave along both the top and the bottom edge. A plain Process rectangle has a straight bottom edge.
Read next
- Next in Flowchart symbolsCylinder (magnetic disk)Data kept in storage, such as files on a disk. The upright cylinder drawn for it is the magnetic disk symbol of the 1970 American flowchart standard; the international standard’s own stored-data symbol is a box with curved sides.
- The same shape in Interface iconsRSS iconA dot with two arcs spreading from it, usually on an orange square, is the feed icon: it marks a link to a website’s RSS or Atom feed, which you can subscribe to for its updates.
More flowchart symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with curves and waves or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Information processing: Documentation symbols and conventions for data, program and system flowcharts, program network charts and system resources charts, ISO 5807:1985, first edition (preview pages), International Organization for Standardization (iTeh Standards preview), Section 9.1.2.4
- Flowchart Symbols and Their Usage in Information Processing, ANSI X3.5-1970, adopted for federal use as FIPS PUB 24, American National Standards Institute; National Bureau of Standards (NIST), Sections 3.3.1.8, 4.12.1 and 4.12.2
- Flowcharting Techniques, IBM Data Processing Techniques, Form C20-8152, International Business Machines Corporation (bitsavers.org), System flowcharts, Situation I
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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