merchant and a buyer use of these terms are not meant to be restrictive on the invention as other types of commercial and non commercial transactions which may occur on the internet between two parties and result in the generation of an electronic document are contemplated for the purposes of this invention the term merchant seller and web site or web server are utilized interchangeably to refer to one party to a transaction whether an individual or a corporation who has an accessible site on the internet at which another party may enter into a transaction buyer or client refers to the other party to a transaction the term document as utilized herein may refer to a simple sales receipt or a more complex contract or agreement finally all communication and transactions occur within the electronic medium i e internet unless stated otherwise with reference now to the figures and in particular with reference to fig1 a data processing system that may be utilized as a buyer 39 s terminal or server on the internet is presented data processing system 20 comprises a central processing unit cpu housed in a system unit 22 system unit 22 also provides connections for various hardware components including disk drives 40 and memory devices not shown stored within memory devices are the operating system os and software applications by which many of the processes of the invention are implemented as will become clear later several peripheral input.