This paper surveys established and emerging scenarios and tools in the language industry with respect to multilingual document production. The authors point out how the focus of attention has moved from an initial preoccupation with the target text via the preoccupation with the source text to working with non-textual information. The paper presents novel tools to support the document creation task and forecasts the creation of a single platform to support multilingual documentation that integrates translation-oriented tools and generation-based tools to be employed by different types of users in different circumstances, as proposed in two European research projects, INDOCREN (1995) and DOCSTEP (1995). This single platform would provide all necessary support for the functions of monolingual and multilingual authoring.