A method and system for previewing and printing customized pages, such as
business forms including invoices and billing statements. An
author-created template has HTML and OLE components (controls) placed on a
page to define a visual representation of a class of object that is part
of a database. The controls merge data from a selected current object of
the database into the template, producing a visual representation of the
object that is both viewable and printable. An extension to the present
invention involves the use of multiple-page HTML to dynamically provide
subsequent pages based on retrieved data. For example, if the data
retrieved by the controls for an invoice is too large to display on a
single invoice page, another HTML page, that is different from the first
page of the invoice, would be automatically loaded as a template and the
overflow data properly merged therewith.
