Patent ID: 8881002

Claim:
A method comprising: identifying content to be displayed in a multi-column layout in a first area having boundaries, the content including multiple elements; obtaining, for each of at least one of the multiple elements, an element layout generated for a previous trial multi-column layout of the content; generating a trial multi-column layout for the content based at least in part on the boundaries and the obtained at least one element layout; checking whether the trial multi-column layout satisfies one or more criteria for balancing the content across multiple columns; using, for displaying the content, the trial multi-column layout if the trial multi-column layout satisfies the one or more criteria; and repeating the obtaining, generating, and checking with areas having different boundaries if the trial multi-column layout does not satisfy the one or more criteria, the different boundaries being determined based at least in part on the previous trial multi-column layout of the content.