Definition: Folio

(1) Text management software for the professional reference publishing market from Fast Search & Transfer, Oslo, Norway and Boston, MA. Known as FAST Folio since its acquisition in 2004 from NextPage, Inc., it provides storage, retrieval and hypertext capability for text databases and can import text from over 40 file formats. Folio search capabilities are geared to the kind of extensive reference material found in government regulations, case and tax law documents, insurance policies and accounting guidelines.

Folio was developed by Utah-based Folio Corporation, acquired by Open Market in 1997 and NextPage, Inc. in 1999. Fast Search purchased the publishing applications business unit of NextPage in 2004, which included the Folio, LivePublish, NXT and GetSmart software products.

(2) (folio) In typography, a printed page number. For example, folio 3 could be the 27th physical page in a book. A "blind folio" is a page number accounted for in pagination but not printed on the page. These occur most frequently on blank left book pages or opening pages of a chapter or article.