Dead tree edition
The "dead tree edition" of some document is a paper version of a document, as opposed to alternatives such as one or more files on harddisk (locally or accessed remotely through internet), CD-ROM, diskette, etc.
The term refers to a common raw material for producing paper. In this context, "dead trees" always refers to paper. Related terms include tree carcass for a book and tree-killer for a computer printer.
These dysphemisms are generally used humorously, though seriously, even though the trees involved are not usually threatened rainforest trees. See paper mill and recycling for discussions of the processes involved.
A related saying among computer aficionados is "You can't grep dead trees." From the Unix command grep meaning to search the contents of text files, this means that an advantage of keeping documents online rather than printing them is that they can be more easily searched for specific contents.
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