The publishing features provide the core functionality of web content management for SharePoint. At its lowest level, the publishing features are provided for a group of content authors to provide web content to a larger audience. This can include public-facing websites for customers, extranets for partners and vendors, and intranets for employees.

In a public-facing website scenario, a marketing team may collaborate on sales and product information to be viewed by customers. In an intranet scenario, a corporate communications team and a human resources team may collaborate on corporate announcements and benefits information to be viewed by employees.

Though the publishing features of SharePoint were designed with web content management in mind, they can be used for a variety of other purposes. For instance, the publishing features can be used for authoring, publishing, and approving Microsoft Word documents. A sales department might use these features when creating customer contracts...