1. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with data for processing by a data processing system, said data comprising: a meta-document for tracking and storing all information pertaining to actions performed by an application program on a document comprising document information during its entire lifetime, comprising a file structure including: an object conveying document information, processing information, and metadata for indexing and retrieving the processing information; wherein all of which are stored on the meta-document and retrievable from the meta-document; wherein the processing information comprises all information pertaining to each time the meta-document is processed by the application program being executed by the data processing system and any results of the processing during the entire life of the meta-document, the processing information being stored on the meta-document each time the meta-document is processed and being retrievable from the meta-document; wherein the metadata comprises all associated metadata pertaining to each time the meta-document is processed by the application program being executed by the data processing system during the entire life of the meta-document, the metadata being stored on the meta-document each time the meta-document is processed and being retrievable from the meta-document; wherein the meta-document is transmitted to a source and parsed at the source for extracting stored processing information and metadata; wherein processing information is stored pertaining to transmitting and parsing at the source and associated metadata stored on the meta-document; wherein the meta-document further comprises a first instruction, embedded on the object, responsive to processing of the meta-document, for generating and storing processing information and associated metadata on the meta-document, wherein the parsing is performed by the first instruction; and wherein the meta-document further comprises a second instruction, embedded on the object, for parsing and extracting selected processing information stored on the meta-document, parsing the meta-document for extracting the selected processing information and associated metadata, and distributing the extracted selected processing information to the source.