Automatic layout of content in a design for a medium

A computer-readable storage material including program instructions for a computer executable method of presenting a document comprising content in a medium, the document further comprising one or more components, each component comprising one or more sub-components, the method comprising:

• receiving the content;
• receiving a design description, the design description comprising data defining relationships among the components and subcomponents;
• receiving a media specification, the media specification defining one or more regions of the medium and one or more sub-regions of the regions, the media specification further associating the regions with the components and associating the sub-regions with the sub-components;
• and
• laying out the content using the design description and the media specification such that the content is arranged to fit the medium, wherein
• at least one document component or subcomponent is a software object comprising media, design and content facets, each facet having a set of values,
• the software object is contained within multiple container objects,
• the values of the design facet are determined by containment in a first container object,
• the values of the content facet are determined by containment in a second container object, and
• the values of the media facet are determined by containment in a third container object.

A computer-readable storage material including program instructions for a computer executable method of presenting a document in a medium, the document having component objects and subcomponent objects, the component and subcomponent objects having content, design and media facets having values, said method comprising:

• determining content facet values of at least one set of component and subcomponent objects by containment in a first set of container objects;
• determining design facet values of the at least one set of component and subcomponent objects by containment in a second set of container objects;
• determining media facet values of the at least one set of component and subcomponent objects by containment in a third set of container objects;
• and
• laying out the document using the design facet values such that the content specified by the content facet values fits the medium specified by the media facet values.