In one aspect, the invention provides a content handling system that comprises a digital data store containing a plurality of instruction sets, each defining a content handling workflow. The system further includes a content handling engine in communications coupling with the store, wherein the content handling engine identifies an embedded code in an article of content. The engine executes on at least that article of content one or more of the instruction sets associated with the embedded code. In related aspects, the invention provides a content handling system as described above in which an content of content comprises any of digitally encoded information (e.g., containing one or more of text, image, audio, video, data, and PACS data) and/or information otherwise convertible to digital format (e.g., printed matter, images, film, and audio recordings). In related aspects, the invention provides systems as described above in which the instruction set specifies any of (i) one or more destinations for articles of content (e.g., e-mail addresses, local or network file system folders, and on-line data stores), (ii) one or more formats (e.g., text, image, audio, video, data, PACS data formats) in which articles of content are to be delivered to those destinations, (iii) additional content (e.g., textual, image, audio, video, data, and PACS data content) to be delivered to those destinations, (iv) one or more conversions (e.g., optical character recognition, voice-to-text, and image resolution upgrading/downgrading) to be executed on articles of content.