1. A system comprising: a multiplicity of predefined characteristics describing print products wherein the predefined characteristics comprise at least one of binding, folding, finishing dimension, and cover; at least one file comprising at least one PDL file comprising product content data wherein at least one of the at least one file comprises at least one partially specified processing instruction; an extraction module that extracts product description data from the files; a knowledge based reasoning module that transforms the product description data and the predefined characteristics into a formal product description; and a process generation module that produces a process network from the formal product description, the at least one partially specified processing instruction, and the at least one PDL file wherein the process network comprises a complete set of processing instructions for directing an automatic publishing system to produce complete printed publications.