文件系指机关、机构、组织或个人在业务处理过程所产生、持有并保存的纪录、文档或数据。依**「文件法」第二条及「文件法施行细则」第二条之规定，指机关依照管理进程，而归档管理之文本或非文本数据及其附件；其来源为处理公务或因公务产生之各类纪录数据及其附件，包括政府机关所持有或保管之文书、图片、纪录、照片、录像（音）、微缩片、电脑处理数据等可供听、读、阅览或借助科技得以阅览或理解之文书或物品。

「文件」具有行政稽凭及法律信证之重要功能，亦为提供历史真实纪录的第一手数据。

「文件」一词，初见于清朝杨宾的《柳边纪略》，至今仍以此词称之。

An archive is an accumulation of historical records or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of that person or organization. Professional archivists and historians generally understand archives to be records that have been naturally and necessarily generated as a product of regular legal, commercial, administrative or social activities. They have been metaphorically defined as "the secretions of an organism", and are distinguished from documents that have been consciously written or created to communicate a particular message to posterity.