Patent ID: 8185820

Claim:
A system, comprising: a memory storing instructions; and one or more processors capable of executing the instructions for generating a document based on a template file and a file; wherein said template file comprises a plurality of content transforming objects which determine formatting and layout for portions of data in the document, wherein at least one of said plurality of content transforming objects determines at least one of formatting or layout for a plurality of different portions of the document; wherein at least one of the plurality of content transforming objects includes a plurality of instructions for extracting the portions of data from the file for formatting in the document; wherein at least one of the plurality of content transforming objects includes a plurality of instructions for formatting the portions of data in the document according to one or more display characteristics; wherein at least one of the plurality of content transforming objects includes a plurality of instructions for determining layout positions within the document for the portions of data; wherein said generating the document based on the template file and the file comprises executing the instructions for the plurality of content transforming objects, wherein said executing comprises extracting the portions of data from the file, formatting the extracted portions of data according to the one or more display characteristics, and placing the extracted portions of data in the document according to the layout positions; wherein at least two of the plurality of content transforming objects are nested in a hierarchical structure, such that instructions for the at least two of the plurality of content transforming objects are executed in a nested manner to format data; and wherein designation of one or more of the plurality of content transforming objects to be executed multiple times is received, wherein only the instructions in the one or more designated content transforming objects are executed multiple times, in multiple passes through the one or more designated content transforming objects, to format different portions of the data.