Automated assembly of a complex document based on production constraints

A method of assembling a document comprising:

• generating a set of candidate content items by selecting a plurality of content items, wherein each of the candidate content items have an associated financial cost;
• selecting a set of production criteria for printing the candidate content items, wherein each of the production criteria have an associated financial cost;
• if the production criteria in the set and the candidate content items in the set do not satisfy an inclusion constraint that comprises a maximum total cost, resolving a conflict, by a computing device, by:
• identifying one or more candidate content items in the set to be removed,
• removing the identified candidate content items from the set,
• identifying one or more production criteria in the set to be modified, and
• modifying the identified production criteria;
• identifying a plurality of non-selected content items;
• automatically applying, by the computing device, an exclusion constraint to the plurality of non-selected content items to identify one or more of the non-selected content items that satisfy the exclusion constraint;
• creating a document that includes the candidate content items that were not removed and the identified non-selected content items;
• and
• publishing the document in accordance with modified production criteria.

An automatic document creation system, comprising:

• a computing device;
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium in communication with the computing device, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprises one or more programming instructions for:
• selecting a set of candidate content items from the content items in the storage media based on one or more content rules, wherein each candidate content item is associated with a content cost,
• determining whether a cost constraint is satisfied by the content cost associated with at least a portion of candidate content items in the set of candidate content items,
• in response to the cost constraint not being satisfied:
• ranking each candidate content item in the set of candidate content items based on a similarity between the candidate content item and the one or more content rules, and
• generating an updated set of candidate content items by removing one or more of the candidate content items based on its associated rank,
• in response to a cost associated with creating a document that includes the updated set of candidate content items not exceeding a minimum cost, identifying one or more advertisements for inclusion in the document, and
• creating a document that includes the updated set of candidate content items and the identified advertisements;
• and
• a printing device in communication with the computer-readable storage medium, wherein the printing device is configured to publish the document.