This chapter considers the concept of an ‘edition’ from two different perspectives. In the first half, Bob Kaster writes as an editor preparing a critical edition for conventional publication, first retrieving the relevant data - chiefly, the versions preserved in manuscripts - then analysing them to form a theory of the text’s transmission that began with the author’s original copy. Much attention is given to the ‘stemmatic method’, used to sift variations among the transmitted versions, aiming to establish the archetype - the latest copy of the text absent which no other copies would survive - or to show that no archetype can be reconstructed, or even to show that the notion of an ‘author’s original’ is misconceived. In the second half, Sam Huskey writes as the director of the Digital Latin Library, a project that aims to move critical editions of Latin texts to a digital paradigm. To demonstrate that such a transition does not render obsolete the methods and skills described in the first part of the chapter, but rather depends on them, traditional editions are described as databases of information encoded visually (e.g. with typography and layout). The experiences of two editors making this transition close this part of the chapter.