Patent ID: 8582164

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a merge utility executing on a computer system, a request to merge a first merge document in a merge format with a second document in an original format; wherein the second document was created in said original format by a first document authoring application; in response to the request, the merge utility causing the second document to be converted from the original format to the merge format to create a second merge document; wherein the second merge document is in the merge format; wherein the step of converting is performed by either the merge utility or the first document authoring application; the merge utility merging the first merge document and the second merge document to generate a composite merge document; and after generating the composite merge document, the merge utility causing said composite merge document to be delivered to an output device; wherein the output device is a device that is different from the computer system; wherein the original format is a format that is not supported by the output device, and therefore needs to be converted to another format that is supported by the output device in order to be properly interpreted by the output device; and wherein the merge format is a format that is supported by the output device, and therefore does not need to be converted to another format that is supported by the output device in order to be properly interpreted by the output device; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.