A facility for generating printed works containing customized or personalized content is described. The facility may electronically provide users with access to information about a collection of content that is available for incorporation into the printed works. The facility may receive content selection instructions from the user for selecting items of content from the collection of content to generate a customized or personalized printed work. In some cases, the instructions may facilitate an automatic content selection process to generate a personalized printed work. Based on the instructions, the facility may select and retrieve the desired items of content and then aggregate them into an electronic document. Prior to generating the customized or personalized printed work, the facility may reformat the items of content within the electronic document based on user formatting instructions. The facility may then arrange for delivery of the printed work to the user.