The present invention facilitates the specification and distribution of templated content materials by a content provider over an information exchange network such as the Internet. The present invention incorporates a system for managing inventories of graphical elements and their relationships to pre-defined page templates. A database capable of keeping track of users and their corresponding access privileges within the system is employed to monitor user activity. Ultimately, through the use of a software component delivered over the Internet for use within standard web browsers, end-users are able to populate templates under the constraints imposed by the rules of the manufacturers at the time of template design. These population elements which "fill in the blanks" of the pre-defined templates may be either of type IMAGE or TEXT. Image regions are populated by choosing from a subset of the entire image inventory, while TEXT types can be completely free form, with specific rules guiding justification, point size, font, and leading, or "fill in the blank" form with the same constraint rules as free form. Once the end user has met all of the criteria for a fully populated template, the system provides sophisticated means for downloading a high resolution file (such as a print-ready file or other file representation of the composed publication) which encapsulates all resources needed (layout, images, fonts, and constraint geometries) to fulfill the requirements of the publication. The downloaded file may be printed or published by electronic transfer, e.g., to a publisher for printing of the actual publication.