1. A method of controlling document access using centrally managed rules, the method comprising: storing documents on a server; receiving a plurality of rules at the server from a central rule database, wherein the rules contain at least one expression used by the server to perform access control for documents stored on the server, and each expression has a corresponding definition statement stored separately from the expression; after the receiving a plurality of rules at the server from the central rule database, at the server, detecting a document access operation for a document stored on the server by an application program on a client system, wherein the document access operation has a first operation type, is an edit document operation, and comprises a low level file operation; receiving at the server a first information regarding the document access operation for the document, but not a second information regarding the low level file operation; preventing the low level file operation from executing on the document at the server; at the server, evaluating at least one rule from the plurality of rules to determine whether the detected document access operation for the document should be allowed based on the document access operation and the first operation type; when the at least one rule is satisfied, allowing the detected document access operation on the document; and when the at least one rule is not satisfied, not allowing the detected document access operation on the document.