Patent ID: 8291313

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving at a processor one or more signals indicative of a document design comprising a plurality of containers; determining a container hierarchy for said plurality of containers utilizing said processor, wherein said determining comprises: row partitioning the plurality of containers into two or more initial rows, wherein each initial row is bounded by a width of the design document and an overall height of two or more containers included in the row, wherein each container included in the row is fully contained within the row; column partitioning at least one of the two or more initial rows comprising two or more containers into two or more initial columns, wherein each initial column is bounded by an overall width of any containers included in the column and is bounded by the height of the initial row, wherein each initial column includes at least one container and each container of the initial column is fully contained within the column; and repeating in an iterative fashion, for each column having two or more containers, said row partitioning and said column partitioning until each column includes only one container; transmitting from the processor to a memory one or more signals indicative of the container hierarchy; and storing said one or more signals indicative of the container hierarchy in said memory.