EDI is a medium (another subsystem) which is moves the SAP data to another system. IDOC is SAP terminology for intermediate document which is more like a file which can be sent to other systems. For your case if you need to send a PO to a vendor via EDI, this is how the process flows -
Step 1. Idoc is triggered of the PO using a message type (output type) with medium EDI i.e., when you save the PO the output type is processed successfully.
Step 2. IDOC is created, this IDOC can be identified as outbound idoc as this is going out of SAP R/3 system. And ORDERS01 (probably) is the basic IDOC type already given by SAP.
Step 3. Now this IDOC is sent to EDI system, which picks up all the fields from idoc and convert it into EDI format. In your case industry standard EDI is 850. (but before having this process in place someone will map the IDoc fields to EDI fields).
Step 4. EDI is now going to send this to the vendor who is capable of dealing and understanding EDI messages. And also during initial setting up of EDI with your company they are going to define what fields on EDI sent from your company mean what to them.
As a whole EDI is just like mode of transportation for us between two cities. And people are similar to data to be exchanged in SAP.
EDI has couple of standards - ANSI X.12 & EDIFACT. Mostly we use ANSI in US, EDIFACT is dominent in Europe. So, when I mentioned EDI 850 it means Purchase order in ANSI format.
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