A genetic algorithm approach to automated custom document assembly

The digital networked world is enabling and requiring a new emphasis on personalized document creation. Traditional methods of producing document layout and style have become insufficient, since most are aimed at producing static results. Also, as new untrained users start producing documents for a wide audience, the old publishing tools prove too demanding. The new, more dynamic digital environment demands tools that can reproduce both the contents and the layout automatically, tailored to personal needs and transformed for the presentation device, and can enable novices to easily create such documents. In order to achieve such automated document assembly and transformation, we have formalized custom document creation as a constrained optimization problem, and use a genetic algorithm to assemble and transform compound personalized documents. We have found that using this approach provides advantages over existing custom document creation methods.