The paperless office was a visionary or publicist's slogan, supposed to apply to the office of the future. The suggestion was that office automation would make paper redundant for routine tasks such as record-keeping and bookkeeping. It came to prominence in the days of the introduction of the personal computer. While the prediction of a PC on every desk was remarkably prescient (or, regarding it as marketing talk, very effective), the paperless nature of office work was less prophetic. Printers and photocopiers have made it much easier to produce documents in bulk, word-processing has deskilled secretarial work involved in writing those documents, and paper proliferates. Office types Class A office space Back office Front office Mobile office Paperless office Serviced office Small office/home office Virtual office Class A Office Space describes the highest quality office space locally available. ... A back office is a part of most corporations where tasks dedicated to running the company itself take place. ... Front office is an integrated CRM software. ... Office types Class A office space Back office Front office Mobile office Paperless office Serviced office Small office/home office Virtual office A mobile office is an office built within a truck, motorhome, trailer or purpose built shipping container. ... Office types Class A office space Back office Front office Mobile office Paperless office Serviced office Small office/home office Virtual office A serviced office is an office or office building that is fully equipped and managed by a facility management company, which then rents individual offices or floors to... The modern concept of Small Office and Home Office or SoHo, or Small or Home Office deals with the category of business which can be from 1 to 10 workers. ... Office types Class A office space Back office Front office Mobile office Paperless office Serviced office Small office/home office Virtual office A virtual office is a service that is offered through serviced offices which allows clients to use a prestigious office address and professional reception service, without renting a... Narrowly, a visionary is one who experiences a supernatural vision or apparition. ... A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, or for a work such as a book or movie. ... The Office of the future is a concept dating from the 40s. ... A blank sheet of paper Paper is a commodity of thin material produced by the amalgamation of fibers, typically vegetable fibers composed of cellulose, which are subsequently held together by hydrogen bonding. ... Bookkeeping is the recording of all financial transactions undertaken by a business (or an individual). ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... A small, much-used Xerox copier in a high school library. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into word processor. ...

Paperless office is also a metaphor for the touting of new technology in terms of 'modernity' rather than its actual suitability to purpose. Look up metaphor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

An early prediction of the paperless office was made in a Business Week article in 1975. BusinessWeek is a business magazine published by McGraw-Hill. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

References

• "The Office of the Future" in Business Week, no. 2387, 30 June 1975, pp 48-70.
• The Elusive Paperless Office -- article on Jehovah's Witnesses Official Web Site
• [1] Consumers now like to keep their information online
• The Saga of the paperless office -- articles on a chiropractors struggle to make his office paperless

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