using-documents.md

description	title	ms.date	helpviewer_keywords	ms.assetid
Learn more about: Using Documents	Using Documents	11/04/2016	documents [MFC], C++ applications data [MFC], reading documents [MFC] files [MFC], writing to data [MFC], documents files [MFC] views [MFC], C++ applications document/view architecture [MFC], documents reading data [MFC], documents and views printing [MFC], documents writing to files [MFC]	f390d6d8-d0e1-4497-9b6a-435f7ce0776c

Using Documents

Working together, documents and views:

• Contain, manage, and display your application-specific data.

• Provide an interface consisting of document data variables for manipulating the data.

• Participate in writing and reading files.

• Participate in printing.

• Handle most of your application's commands and messages.

The document is particularly involved in managing data. Store your data, normally, in document class member variables. The view uses these variables to access the data for display and update. The document's default serialization mechanism manages reading and writing the data to and from files. Documents can also handle commands (but not Windows messages other than WM_COMMAND).

What do you want to know more about

• Deriving a document class from CDocument

• Managing data with document data variables

• Serializing data to and from files

• Bypassing the serialization mechanism

• Handling commands in the document

• The OnNewDocument member function

• The DeleteContents member function

See also

Document/View Architecture