Patent ID: 7581178

Claim:
A method for paginating an electronic document, the method comprising: receiving a first target page dimension and a second target page dimension for a page of the electronic document, wherein the first target page dimension is associated with a length of the page and the second target page dimension is associated with a width of the page; determining an approximate first dimension and an approximate second dimension for each item in the electronic document, wherein the approximate first dimension is associated with a length of the respective item and the approximate second dimension is associated with a width of the respective item; comparing the approximate first dimension to the first target page dimension; comparing the approximate second dimension to the second target dimension; determining each item to include on the page of the electronic document based on a result of the comparisons; adjusting the length of the page if a total of the approximate first dimensions of the items included on the page are greater than or less than the first target page dimension; adjusting the width of the page if a total of the approximate second dimensions of the items included on the page are greater or less than the second target page dimension; and generating the page of the electronic document, wherein the first and second target page dimensions are treated as approximate page breaks to permit variable pagination where the dimensions of each generated page of the electronic document are permitted to vary among generated pages in order to accommodate items included on each page in the electronic document.