The goal of the organization is to promotes "best practices for the design, production and delivery of electronic documents.
Xplor International was founded in 1980 as a trade association specifically for transaction document applications, due to the difference in emphasis on variable data.
Originally a user group for the Xerox 9700 laser printer, they reshaped their mission in the early 1980s to address the entire transaction document industry.
Hardware companies like IBM, Siemens (later Océ), Hewlett Packard, Pitney Bowes, Bell & Howell, Ricoh,[3] and Xerox have been actively involved as have software companies like Image Sciences (later Docucorp International), Document Sciences, Cincom Systems, GMC Software Technology, Xenos, Crawford Technologies, supported Xplor in order to promote a venue for the issues that are unique to the creation of transaction documents.
As of 2018 Xplor hosts an annual conference with presentations on topics such as "Communication Design, Technologies, and Customer Experience".