A method and apparatus for performing dynamic modification of templates based on a local user profile is provided. A document is received from a server by a client. The document includes one or more placeholders. The placeholders may be set off by escape sequences, for example. The client parses the document to locate the one or more placeholders. The client substitutes for the one or more placeholders data that is based upon local content stored on the client. The local content may be stored in a local user profile in the form of a database or a registry file, for example. The document may be in the form of a generic Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) template. If this is the case, the substitution includes translating the generic HTML template into an HTML document by replacing the one or more placeholders with HTML expressions.