The coming of the WWW and of the Internet as a telecommunications network has changed the concept of what is considered information: the person who is best informed is not the one with the most information but the one with the best means for obtaining and assimilating (consuming) exactly the information acquired. This situation is proving to be a great stimulus for research into and the development of applications in the field of technology for recovering and extracting information. In this context, automated document summary systems are a new step forward towards optimising the treatment of documentation in digital formats and for tailoring it to the needs of users. This article outlines the main lines of research into the creation of automated summaries and its relationships with other areas of linguistic engineering.